Chapter 10 ~ Bootlegger
A Tale of Two Times: Volume 4, Reign of the War Queen
~ 1 ~ They were free now, to leave Antonia’s house, but Martin, and the others who had hidden away there together, found themselves reluctant to part. They were not eager to break the spell under which they had been suspended, in each other’s company, in a kind of bubble separating them from all that they must now face. Before going off to come to grips with the immediate future rushing upon them, they had been enjoying each other’s company in a casual ranch-style breakfast prepared by Leo and Antonia, allowing the spell to mellow itself away into that future.
They had eaten their fill, and Leo and Martin were sitting at one corner of the breakfast table, each drinking a last cup of coffee and talking business. Antonia and Isabel remained at the table’s opposite corner, while Hans and Yohanna were standing near the door.
Martin was telling Leo that all was ready for him to immediately assume a high-level position in the Home Construction Company and begin directing site preparation at the stone cabin property. Equipment and Guild workers, he said, were already on their way to the site.
“Leo, we’ll develop plans for the structure to be built, as events unfold. Antonia has suggested that it should be designed to become eventually a Clan Hold. Rhoda suggests a building design inspired by a Swiss mountain villa such as the Countess Thersa’s, and by the Wilberforces' Kirchemund. Your new secretary, Tanya, will arrive today with floor plans and photographs of both of those places.”
“Your daughter’s suggestions seem to carry a lot of weight, Martin.” Leo caught Antonia’s eye as he lifted his coffee mug to his lips.
When the two men had begun talking about Leo’s new position, Antonia and Isabel had suspended their conversation, Antonia turning toward the two men in order to hear them clearly.
“Yes, Leo,” Martin replied, “Rhoda and Ricardo call the shots now, although Ricardo has, of course, some catching-up to do.”
“To whom would I be reporting, Martin?”
“To me. Tanya, whom you will soon meet, reports to you, of course. She knows everything about all of the Guild businesses, and all of their resources are available to you.”
“Okay, Martin; that’ll get me started today.” Leo looked down into the wide coffee mug cradled in his hands on the table. To his own reflection he said, “Setting aside a thousand questions—that Hans and Isabel probably have, too—about the Makers’ art, and gods and the like, I want to ask one geopolitical question about the conclusion of Ottilie’s War Thing. It’s about Japan. America’s entrance into World War Two kept the Germans from developing the atomic bomb, and America would not have entered the war if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor, leading Germany to declare war on us.” Leo looked up at Martin.
Unlike the others in the room, Leo was a geopolitical military history buff, and Antonia and Martin knew that once Leo had taken an interest in a puzzle, he felt compelled to fit together all of its pieces.
Isabel and Yohanna looked at each other and rolled their eyes, but Hans turned toward Martin and Leo with sudden interest. Hans felt that, in asking about Ottilie’s War Thing, Leo might also be speaking about Rhoda’s War Thing, about which Hans was concerned because of Yohanna’s relationship with Rhoda.
Martin said, “I think that without America’s entrance into the war, the Germans would have defeated Russia and checkmated England, and they would have developed atomic weapons in a few years.”
“Martin, the Histories mention Ichiro Koga, who was Dwight Hemming’s graduate student and then became Georg’s graduate student. Koga’s father was science and technology advisor to the Emperor of Japan. It’s my guess that Ellie Herder was enamored of Ichiro, and I’d wager that Ichiro Koga was the highest-placed intelligence agent on either side in the War.”
“Do you forget anything that you hear, Leo?”
“Very little that’s in my line.”
“Yes, Ichiro Koga was exactly that. And, as you’ve implied, although it was an ally of Germany, Japan was on the side of those who were opposed to atomic weapons possession by Nazi Germany.”
“Martin, I know the Emperor was at first in favor of the expansionist policy spearheaded by Japan’s military in China. It’s said that he got to hating its brutality, but he’d discovered that once war starts, it runs its own course, like a forest fire, and he couldn’t politically control his own military so long as they were successful.”
“Yes, Leo, but he did have to approve major new campaigns.”
Antonia, listening closely, understood what it was that Martin was implying. “Oh, God!” she exclaimed, “The Emperor approved the attack on Pearl Harbor so America would become an enemy of Germany!”
“How could he know that would happen?” Hans asked.
“Because Japan and Germany had a mutual defense pact in which Germany was bound to declare war on any nation who declared war on Japan. Hitler was crazy enough to actually do it, after the attack on Pearl Harbor caused America to declare war on Japan.”
“So,” said Leo slowly, “let’s say the Emperor was the only international leader who fully understood the situation, and he had the heart to act in a situation that required choosing the lesser of two very great evils to be faced by his country in the future. In battle, timing is everything, so why did the Emperor choose that time to release his military to act? Attacking America would be a huge risk to his country, and it was the one campaign he could have stopped.”
Martin nodded. “It was the result of an act by Ichiro Koga. Koga was a frequent guest in Winfred Wahl’s Berlin house, where he became socially acquainted with Ottilie. He was sometimes there when Field Marshal Herder was visiting Winfred. Goering courted Ichiro in an attempt to learn about high-level Japanese politics. And I had known Ichiro personally through Aeronauticas business before the war, when we were both young men. Ichiro knew everything about the German nuclear program, and through Ichiro, his father and the Emperor knew it also.
“Ichiro Koga was one of Ellie Herder’s lovers, and a year after her death Inspector Osterloh’s list of her lovers was stolen from the Berlin Police and made public. Soon after that, Ichiro committed harakiri and his body was sent back to Japan. With his body was a message to his father written in Ichiro ’s hand: ‘Four years more and fire will fall.’ It was believed in Germany that his suicide was caused by the public exposure of his former relationship with Ellie Herder.”
Yohanna said thoughtfully, “Ottilie had fallen upon her sword. Then Ichiro fell upon his own sword in the ultimate symbolic gesture—inviting Japan to fall upon its sword.”
“And since the fire has fallen upon Japan, no more atomic bombs have fallen upon anyone,” concluded Martin.
Hans’s pacifism was sorely tried by the things which he was hearing. He thought about the atomic bombs hidden next to the stone cabin, below the cistern. Had they been there beneath his feet on the day that he had helped clean out the cistern? Rhoda’s War Thing was dealing with the same terrible weapons with which Ottilie Krüger’s War Thing had dealt! Hans glanced at Isabel and saw that similar thoughts were disturbing her. Their breakfast table discussion—contrasting with the fresh breezes and daylight coming cheerfully through open windows and doors—was bringing the grim reality of the War Thing vividly to both Hans and Isabel. Hans understood now that Leo’s questions were in fact about the reach and power of Rhoda, whose suggestion had set the direction of the new work which Martin had offered to Leo. Leo hasn’t made up his mind yet, and neither have I.
Isabel asked, “Could Ottilie’s reach have been so long? She had been dead for a year before Ichiro died.”
“I think it could have,” said Antonia, looking at Leo.
After looking down again into his coffee, Leo looked up and said, “Well, Martin, it’s about time for you to take me over to my place so I can pick up my mail and listen to the messages on my answering machine. We’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”
Martin and Leo left Antonia’s house, and Yohanna looked at Hans and Isabel. “I know that both of you want to think about these things. Please let me take you on a tour of Rhoda’s place. Martin says that she is currently in New York City, but you may learn some things about her by touring her home, and you will want to ponder them.”
“Will we learn more about you, too?”
“It is possible, Isabel. Rhoda and I have shared some interesting adventures. At her place you will see some objects which will aid me in telling you about one of them.”
~ 2 ~ Yohanna had driven Hans and Isabel to an older two-story stucco duplex, telling them on their way over to it that Rhoda shared the building with the Gomez family. She parked her car next to the sidewalk, and Hans climbed out at once to examine the living wall created by grapevines growing thickly on a tall stake fence surrounding the building and its yard. The grape wall was broken by an arbor which allowed the grapevines to pass over the driveway. As Yohanna led Hans and Isabel under it into the yard, Isabel reached up and picked a cluster of juicy grapes. She sampled a few of them while following Yohanna to a side door of the garage.
Announcing that, “We will begin our house tour in Rhoda’s garage,” Yohanna unlocked the garage’s side door and ushered Hans and Isabel inside.
When she turned on the lights, Hans was looking at Yohanna rather than at the garage’s interior. “Yohanna,” he said, “your home is like a fortress compared to Rhoda’s duplex here. The entrance under the arbor here doesn’t even have a gate. Isn’t Rhoda, living here by herself, pretty much exposed to all the dangers that the rich and powerful defend themselves against in their mansions?”
“Hans, dear, the world may consider Rhoda rich and powerful, and she has the means to live accordingly, but Rhoda is her own fortress, and she does not live alone. Theresa Rose and Alonzo Gomez, with their two little boys, share the building with her in the other half of the duplex. Alonzo is a member of Wilson’s crew, whom you may have seen at the Ontario hangar. I think the family are not home at present, but I stay overnight with Rhoda frequently, so I know them, and I know Rhoda’s other neighbors. I am certain, Hans, that I am more secure here with Rhoda than I am in my family’s stronghold.”
“But she’s still—you know—just a woman. I mean, she’s human like the rest of us.”
“That is true, Isabel, but she is a Keen Maker, and…”
Yohanna was interrupted by an exclamation from Hans: “Look! Rhoda has two motorcycles parked in here!”
“Yes, Hans. These bikes are my reason for bringing you first to the garage. I want to share something with you—a sort of confession.” Yohanna smiled. “Rhoda and I go biking out in the desert sometimes, for fun. One of these bikes is mine.”
Hans was already down on his knees examining the bikes. “I don’t recognize the make, but these look like really powerful machines. I think I told you I’ve done a little biking in Germany.”
“That is why I knew that you would be interested, dear. These motorcycles were made in Chile, and then they were modified by Knox Aviation. As I have told you, Hans, I have driven motorcycles in Nigeria, where they are common, so Rhoda asked me to go biking with her here.”
Yohanna patted her motorcycle affectionately. “I would like to tell you about one of my biking adventures with Rhoda. It will help me to answer your question, Isabel, about Rhoda’s personal security. One day Rhoda surprised me with a gift of this high-performance motorcycle…”
Yohanna told them about Rhoda’s cultivation of the Fontana Few as her motorcycle club ally, and about the events following the Barstow Bastards’ claim to turf previously claimed by the Fontana Few. Hans and Isabel listened incredulously as she described the execution of Rhoda’s plan, by which she and Yohanna drew the Bastards into an ambush, “softening them up” for the Few by swinging their bikes around them like cudgels. Yohanna told them that while the Fontana Few descended upon the Bastards, she and Rhoda made their way through the fighting bikers to resume their pleasant day of motorcycling.
Isabel shook her head. “I don’t believe it, Yohanna! You’re exaggerating.”
Hans was staring at his sweetheart. He asked her suspiciously, “Is this in the Histories?”
“Not yet, and I did not expect you to fully believe me. I will demonstrate the truth of it.” Yohanna removed her earrings and exchanged them for a pair of plain gold hoop earrings from her purse. “These are the earrings made by Rhoda, about which I have been telling you.”
Yohanna pulled out her hairpins, and dreadlocks tumbled down over her bare shoulders exposed by her sleeveless blouse. Hans was fascinated, but Isabel saw Yohanna’s act as an implied threat. Yohanna leaped onto her bike, then turned her face to them—the face of a snarling lioness! Her dreadlocks had become a nest of writhing coral snakes, and coiled around each of her bare arms was a tattooed white snake, its jaw conforming to the hand grasping the bike’s handlebar. The motorcycle’s engine had instantly rumbled to life, and Yohanna lifted the bike easily. With superb control, she thrust its spinning rear wheel to within a foot of their faces. Hans and Isabel felt the breeze from it, and Isabel impulsively threw her grapes at the spinning tire. The grapes splattered against the wall. Yohanna set down her bike and calmly removed and replaced her earrings. She began pinning up her hair.
Isabel looked at the smashed-grape mess. “It wasn't an illusion,” she said. She used up the entire package of facial tissues from her purse in cleaning up the wall and the adjacent floor. Hans, attempting to lift the motorcycle, exclaimed,“This bike weighs hundreds of pounds! The motor’s warm, so I know it really was running.”
Yohanna smiled at him. “Have no fear, my Hans; Valkei’s wrists are dangerous only when one is lifting heavy objects against a true threat. That is the Makers' Ethical Force at work.”
“Were Hans and I threats to you?” asked Isabel. She felt suddenly unsure of herself, and of Yohanna.
“Oh, no! The threat was your determined doubt about the reality of Makers' Devices, and about our Histories’ narrative. Come. My description of our adventure with the motorcycle gang paints an incomplete picture of Rhoda. Let us go on into the backyard.” Yohanna opened the garage’s side door and took Isabel’s hand. Hans followed, and they passed beneath fragrant orange trees into a generously-sized garden. Hans had not noticed the orange trees while they were walking to the garage’s side door.
Isabel looked around. ”This is a serious vegetable garden! I wouldn't have guessed that it was here.”
"Yes, it is a fine garden, Isabel. Rhoda and the Gomez family work hard cultivating it and harvesting its fruits. I, too, work in their garden when I visit.”
Hans looked at the grassy field between the garden and the tall grapevine fence. The backyard was amazingly large; he had not imagined so large a yard when he had looked at the duplex from the front.
Isabel sampled a tomato from a neatly-trellised vine. "Oh! This tomato has a wonderful flavor!" She looked around with interest as she slowly finished eating the tomato. "The ditch irrigation is very well designed. We had a small garden in Lisbon, and also one in Brazil, so I can see that this garden, together with the chickens in the yard, can easily provide enough to feed a family."
"It does, and it feeds Rhoda, too, when she is here,” said Yohanna. “She always does her share of the work, and they do all of the work by hand. They use no machines.”
"Is this a Clan practice that you're describing to us?"
“It is, Isabel. We all work almost daily in our gardens, producing our own share of food."
"Even Martin?” Hans asked.
"Especially Martin. Everyone does his or her part. This practice is built deeply into our Clan’s culture."
Isabel frowned. ”I'm kind-of used to thinking of my time as my own, Yohanna. Hoeing a row every day, when I could more easily buy food, might get to be a drag.”
“Isabel, those of us who stay with the Clan find that doing our work is a part of our own self-time."
"Did Ottilie Krüger do her own garden work?” asked Hans.
"She did, when she was at the Abbey Estate. When the Ban of Swords is lifted, War Thing members are furloughed from garden work, and Ottilie deeply missed her lost garden time. Performing simple manual work is a valuable part of being human.“
~ 3 ~ While Yohanna was showing Rhoda’s place to Hans and Isabel, Leo was on his way to his own apartment, having accepted a ride with Martin. Leo’s quadraplex apartment was provided to him rent-free by Vladimir Real Estate and Estate Management, and it was the one of the two upper apartments from which there was a good view. Antonia had picked it out for him after she had learned from Martin that Leo would be watching out for Rhoda’s safety. “She is mortal, after all,” Martin had joked.
Antonia had chuckled, saying, “I’ll keep an eye on Leo, and then we’ll all be safe. First, I have to find the right place for him to live.” The “right place” had meant, among other things, a location by which she drove on her daily commute.
Leo looked around the now-familiar neighborhood through which they were passing. “Martin, Cherokee also rented that stone cabin. It’s dollars to pennies that he’s the head arms dealer, and that my new construction project is sitting on his hoard of atomic bombs. If that’s true, he’ll soon be knocking on my door—one way or another. In the past, he and I worked as a team: His combat and tactical savvy would get us into enemy territory, and then I gathered ground intelligence there about whatever had been discovered by our aerial surveillance. Cherokee’s tactical and combat skills were almost preternatural. Is it possible that he’s been getting help from some of those Powers we’ve been hearing about?”
“In fact, Leo, it’s possible that Cherokee is the ancient Shade Overlord, Godogisel, who has been aided occasionally by the personal presence of some of the Foe’s Powers. But Shades do not walk with the Powers of the Foes’s Circle in the way that Rhoda and Ricardo walk with the Clan’s Powers, so Cherokee can’t have any personal command over Powers.”
“Whew! Martin, I feel like you’re asking me to step into that war Homer wrote about—where the gods are pulling the strings.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way, Leo. But the real gods are different from Homer’s gods.”
“How’s that?”
“Real gods are truly invisible, and they are not sexual beings. There is no Zeus lusting after earthly maidens, and there are no goddesses championing personal heroes who are their own half-human sons.”
“Yohanna told me the gods weave—or make—the world we live in, our bodies included. Is that true, Martin?”
“It is, Leo. The root of the Goth word for ‘create’ means ‘to weave’, and the gods have woven all of the Provinces of the Commons, as well as Earth’s Province. They do not reproduce themselves; instead they produce other things according to their own created natures. We humans weave without knowing that we’re working with or against the gods through our cultures.”
Martin parked his car on the street in front of Leo’s two-story apartment building.
“Okay Martin, if there are gods with you, I’m with you, too. I’m your arms dealer of opportunity.”
“I accept your services for the War Thing, Leo, and I’ll brief you before you get out of the car. General Smith has asked Ricardo about the possibility of fabricating decoy ersatz bombs, so Ricardo has made the necessary measurements, and work on the bombs has begun. While we are in the process of returning the real bombs to the Soviets, Ricardo has set up a Workshop for fabricating the ersatz bombs, in the underground chamber beneath the stone cabin’s cistern. The Workshop’s entrance will be invisible to you, and you cannot enter unless Ricardo accompanies you. You will see there some dummy bombs which are real enough for you to show to Cherokee, if that becomes necessary. In a short time, even the Russians who built the originals wouldn’t know that they are ersatz.”
Leo whistled. “Okay, what does ‘ersatz’ mean, Martin?”
“In this case it means that, when they are ready for delivery to Cherokee, the five bombs will be part of one Clan Device consisting of all ten bombs. It will be possible to detonate any one of them in a test site where no one is endangered, producing a true nuclear explosion. The bombs will fizzle if they are used for purposes other than testing.”
“Martin, is that really possible?”
“Oh, yes. The bombs are Arms, as we call them, of a single Device of ten bombs, including the five original Soviet bombs. It allows for a total of any five of the ten to detonate properly when tested. (Among the ten exists the power of only the five original bombs, so after five have been detonated, no more power remains.) None of the ten will detonate if it’s used for aggressive purposes by the Soviets, or by Cherokee’s clients or anyone else, because Goth Device Design ensures their conformation to the Ethical Force.”
“Okay, Martin. If that’s the way it works, it means I have a strong hand, and I can negotiate for a pretty big cut of the profits.” Do I really believe what Martin is telling me?
“I’ll wait for you here in my car, Leo, while you’re in your apartment. I’ve got plenty of paperwork to do. After you’ve finished opening mail and listening to messages, we’ll get you established in your new position with Home Construction. These are your business cards.”
From the small box handed to him by Martin, Leo withdrew a few cards, examined one, and then slipped them into his wallet. He looked at Martin. “I’m head of Home Construction of San Antonio? That’s a big promotion, Martin.”
Entering the lobby of his apartment complex, Leo was preoccupied with all of his current concerns: Antonia, his new position in the Home Construction Company, and the secrets of the stone cabin. He found the latter two concerns waiting to confront him in the apartment building’s lobby.
“Mr. Leo Roberson?” The man rose from his seat before Leo was able to unlock his mailbox.
Leo sized him up at once: The man’s expensive suit signaled that he was a big-deal businessman. His expression failed to disguise an intense desire to succeed in the deal he was about to offer Leo. Either it’s big money, or his life is at risk. Leo drawled, “That’s my handle, partner. What’s yours?” He extended his hand to the man. Leo, standing there holding his expensive hat—a gift from Antonia—in his left hand, perfectly fit the description given to the man by his nephew, of the ‘wealthy Texan’ who had bought the old stone cabin out from under him.
“Dominick Mazzatelli, at you service.” Nick’s uncle spoke with an Italian accent and a wonderfully insincere smile.
The bootlegger himself, or worse. “Well, Mr. Mazzatelli, I’d say it’s your serve. I don’t recall having met you before.”
“Mr. Roberson, you’ve recently purchased—for cash—the old stone cabin off Old Turkey Road.”
“I’m the man. It was on the market for a long time.”
“Yes. It was my nephew who sold it to you, but the fact is that the place has a certain…sentimental value to my family.”
Leo walked over to a small wooden table with two matching chairs. A drawer in the table held a chess set and a new deck of cards. Leo pulled out one chair and gestured to the other. “Let’s talk, Dominick.”
Dominick sat. “Because of its value to the family, Leo, I would like to buy back the cabin—at a fair price, of course, and for cash.”
“Well, Dominick, let me enlarge the scope of our discussion: My family, too, (My family! I like the sound of it.) has a sentimental interest in the property. In fact, we have an interest in the entire region surrounding that property, which we have also purchased. My company, (Martin did say, ‘This is your company, Leo.’) Home Construction of San Antonio, is embarking on a rather extensive project involving development of the whole property, of which the cabin area will be our crowning jewel.” As Leo spoke—slowly and with relish—he began to shuffle the deck of cards, shooting the cards from hand to hand with fascinating dexterity.
“Are you saying that you’re not interested in selling the property?” Dominick asked, “or…”
“I’m saying that in business there are many shades of ‘Yes’ where sentimental values are concerned. Perhaps, like us, you appreciate the value that a Native American places on lucrative gambling prospects—or have expertise in commercial gaming ventures. Perhaps there are items of sentimental value lost or hidden on the property. There are also other possible cases.”
“Who knows?” said Dominick. “Perhaps we share some sentimental values in common. My family has a hand in many business ventures.”
“And we,” said Leo, “are always looking for business partners who have a broad view of things, and the resources to enhance profits and reduce risks.”
“Simple transactions between friends are one thing, Leo, but larger business ventures require consultation with our family associates.”
“Tell you what, Dominick.” Leo rose to his feet and removed from his wallet one of his new business cards. “I’m planning to tour the site—including the stone cabin area—in the next week or two with some of my staff. I want to see what this rain has done to soil surface conditions, because we’re ready to move in some equipment to do testing and minor grading for a lay-down yard. If you’d like to join us, I can give you a better understanding of our plans, which, of course, are still developing.”
“I would be interested,” replied Dominick, taking the card, “but I need to confer with a few of my associates…in the family.”
“I understand, Dominick. There’s no hurry. What is time? There should be many opportunities in the foreseeable future. Contact my secretary, Tanya, (Now, I’ve got to meet her!) when your schedule is open; we’ll take it from there.”
In turn, Dominick handed to Leo one of his cards, his mind churning. A Native American? Is that code for Cherokee? What is this guy’s business?
“Did you see the man who left my building a few minutes ago, Martin?” Leo was sliding onto the passenger side of the front seat.
“I did. He and his scar-faced driver saw me, too. I had parked us right in front of their car, and the driver was waiting in it. After your visitor had seated himself in the rear, the driver rolled their car past mine slowly and looked me over. My window was open, and I just nodded to him with a business-like smile. He must be the businessman’s bodyguard. I’m sure he has our license plate number, and they’ll find out that the car is owned by Vladimir Real Estate and Estate Management. Well, if necessary, you can plausibly maintain that Vladimir Real Estate belongs to Home Construction. I’ve written down their license plate number, too, of course.”
“Martin, my visitor was Dominick Mazzatelli, the real former owner of the stone cabin—the ‘bootlegger’. He wanted to buy it back. Antonia and I bought the stone cabin from his nephew, Nick. Mazzatelli’s body language told me the matter was of serious concern to him, and I think Cherokee may be the cause of his concern. I suspect there’s a relationship between them, and if that’s right, Cherokee will soon learn that I’m the man he wants to talk to. I gave Mazzatelli my card. Do you know anything about Dominick Mazzatelli?” Leo handed the man’s card to Martin. After glancing at it Martin returned the card to Leo.
“I don’t know him personally, but I know that his family is very big in international organized crime.”
“That’s Dominick, alright.”
“What a small world it is, Leo.” Martin started the car. “We need to get to Home Construction’s offices right away.”
“Yeah, Martin, I need to meet Tanya. I told the guy to contact me through ‘my secretary’.”
“Tanya and everyone else is waiting to meet the new boss, Leo. You’ve hit the ground running, and being married to Antonia will make you more like one of the family, because her parents, Martha and Kurt, are both Guild chiefs. Mazzatelli’s family knows something about the Guild, and they naturally suspect that the Guild does business in the way they do. You can play that card to allay suspicions that you’re involved only because you know Cherokee.”
“I like your plan Martin; I’ll take immediate action with Antonia, but right now I need more information about the nerve gas disinformation story. What’s the kernel of truth in it?”
