“Devil for a Witch” appears in the anthology “Jewish Noir,” published last November by PM Press.
For three years, the FBI had tracked Leon Greenberg’s finances, marital difficulties, children’s schools, taste in music, love affairs, drinking habits, and contributions to organizations under federal investigation. Agent Whipple unlocked a black attaché case and laid out checks forged by Leon Greenberg with Stanley White’s signature.
Leon studied the checks. “I no longer work at Ace Linens.”
“We are aware of your employment status,” Whipple said grimly. “Nonetheless, we have proof you forged these checks.”
“Is that what Phil Steiner told you?”
“We know about your links to Dr. King and Fidel Castro. We know you spent two weeks at a Mississippi Freedom School.”
“Are you saying that’s illegal?”
Agent Whipple smiled, showing a row of small amber teeth. “You know what’s illegal, Mr. Greenberg. You’ll soon be facing criminal charges and a long prison sentence.”
Leon sat mulling over his Jim Beam. “Like how long?”
“Fraud, forgery, embezzlement are serious crimes.”
Leon knew they were serious, serious by intent. He had acted according to conscience.
“In my defense, I can prove the funds were originally embezzled by my brother-in-law, Phil Steiner. Every penny belonged to my wife.”
“We call that backpedaling, Mr. Greenberg. Backpedaling is something of an art.”
Whipple painted a bleak picture of Leon’s future. He had stolen, there was no doubt. He had distributed monies to suspicious causes. Certainly, he didn’t believe a jury or judge in Georgia would be swayed by his pinko generosity.
Leon forced himself to stay sober. He considered his choices. You trade the devil for a witch was a country saying. Devil, he knew. Witch was unknown.
Suicide was not far-fetched for a man in Leon’s predicament. He had contemplated suicide. He’d read the Existentialists and accepted suicide as an individual’s ultimate act in a world where individuality was valued less and less. Under the threat of the Atomic Age, it functioned as a solace. A last resort. While it carried a stigma of shame, the stigma was one man’s act of desperation rather than society’s collective condemnation. Avoiding trial and prison meant there would be money for Irene and the kids. Money Leon couldn’t otherwise provide.
The FBI would stage the suicide. That would pose no problem. They were adept at theatrics. At their third meeting, Leon handed over his suit, shirt, tie, socks, shoes, reading glasses, and wallet with his driver’s license. In exchange, he received a bus ticket to Louisville and identification for Dr. Leland Green with a CV that included published articles on the science of white superiority.
“You ready?” Whipple asked.
“How the hell could I be ready?”
“Ready to serve mankind.”
“As a white bigot, that’s always cause for celebration.”
Agent Whipple laughed. “Instead of whimpering with liberal guilt, you can put your ass on the line.”
Tears sprang to Leon’s eyes. “What if …
“You’ll realize you made the right decision,” Whipple sympathized.
“It wasn’t a decision. You gave me no choice.”
At the same hour Leland Green boarded a bus at the Greyhound station, Leon Greenberg’s car was locked inside a garage, its muffler stuffed with rags, its engine left running. Inside was the corpse of a Caucasian man of medium height with broad shoulders and a barrel chest, wearing Leon’s best blue suit, pin-striped shirt, and gray knit tie. The man was the same blood type and shoe size as Leon and shared the same shade of thinning brown hair. Obviously, they weren’t identical. Rather than take measures to destroy the body entirely and with it proof positive, the bureau decided to blow off enough of the stranger’s face to turn it into pulp.
Leland’s bus headed into the starry countryside. He pressed his nose against the window. The nose of a man who no longer existed. Or existed but no longer lived. The memories intact but the man gone. The inverse of amnesia.
In Louisville, he read the hand-printed sign — DR. LELAND GREEN.
“Welcome,” Hugh Martino said jovially. “Long ride?”
“An eternity,” Leon mused.
Martino showed Leon his Buick with Oregon plates, his new driver’s license and passport, a strongbox of cash and travelers cheques, a camera and telephoto lens, a first aid kit, an ice cooler, and a portfolio of articles.
“You think I can pull this off?” Leon asked.
“I don’t think anything, that’s why they keep me around. Here’s your gun and ammo.”
“Jesus, I don’t know how to shoot. I never fired a shot in the whole goddamn war.”
“They don’t expect you to know what they know. You’re a thinking man, not a redneck. Hell, most of them can’t read or write. Try to get in target practice. Squirrels, possums, cans. Go into the woods with your buddies. They know how to shoot. Anyway, woods is where talking gets done. It’s trees that keep the secrets.”
The Natchez Trace is bordered by dense woods, rivers, pastures, and hills. It’s a beautiful drive, but Leland Green failed to notice scenery. He was preoccupied with a temptation to abandon his new identity, steal the car, the cash, the passport and beeline over the border to Mexico. A romantic notion for a man without guilt. Equally preoccupying him was Leon the hero. Daniel heading into the pit. However, he was incapable of ennobling his cause with romance or sainthood. Neither brave nor guiltless, not a Daniel or a Zygielbojm, he was penitent, tired, deflated, and by Jackson city limits, he’d shed any illusions of free will.
He checked into a downtown hotel. His preference was a new motel with a swimming pool, but the agency wanted him to present as bookish, indifferent to modern comforts, content with chintz bedspreads and dust ruffles, Gideon within arm’s reach, and paintings of buggies and barns. After dinner in the hotel dining room, he strolled through the thick, stagnant air relieved by the occasional steamy gust from the river.
At the hotel, the clerk handed him a note in poorly printed letters: Meat 11 AM by stat U. Hary B-E-R-G-S-T-A-D-T
“You read it okay, sir?” he asked timidly.
“How long you been working here?”
“Two nights, sir.”
“You might consider another profession.”
“I want to be a lawyer, sir.”
“You got to know how to spell to be a lawyer.”
“Nigger lawyers know how to spell?”
Leon closed his eyes. He conjured Daddy King in his pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist. It was there he’d been introduced to The Beloved Community and called brother. There, he’d perceived what it meant to love an enemy. Only love conquers hate, King said.
“They spell right?” the clerk sneered.
“You better believe they do.”
The next morning, he walked to City Hall. He took a seat between the imposing bronze statue of Andrew Jackson and the antebellum building. At the appointed hour, a gentleman with a white standard poodle leisurely approached him. “Dr. Green?” he inquired.
Leon jumped up as Harry Bergstedt pumped his hand. “Meet Puss,” Harry said.
Leland Green held out his biscuit-and-gravy fingers for Puss to lick. He found himself trembling.
Let them lead the conversation. Whipple instructed.
Bergstedt’s smile brightened. “We’ve read your work with great admiration.”
“Thank you,” Leland whispered, unable to catch his breath.
For two years, the writings of “Hailstorm” had appeared in Klan publications and circulated in White Citizen Councils. Agent Whipple never divulged who wrote the articles or how the plot evolved. Leon suggested a local infiltrator was more sensible than an elaborate ruse, but they disagreed. With the country’s international reputation at stake, they needed an intelligent outsider. Leon Greenberg put a man on their side who was capable of reasoning through information and responding with measured caution. He had the bonus of a personality that could win the confidence of both crackers and patricians. Violent crackers, the agency could identify. They were status quo. The planners and financiers remained clandestine. The agency wanted to know which bank president owned a white robe.
“I understand this is a research tour?”
“For a new book.”
“And the subject, sir?”
“There’s only one subject,” Lee said, surprised by his resoluteness.
“In Jackson, you’ll find many sympathizers. They’ve sent me out as welcome wagon to invite you to dinner. Meanwhile, what can I do to make you feel at home?”
“I already feel at home,” Lee said, his left hand in spasm.
At seven o’clock, he stood stone sober on the doorstep of Harry Bergstedt’s Belhaven home, its facade as stately as Harry. Lifting the polished brass knocker, he tapped politely. The door was opened by an arthritic butler who ushered Lee to the parlor where Bergstedt immediately rose and hailed the guest of honor.
“To Dr. Leland Green, pioneer and preservationist.”
Lee hesitated. Surely, he wasn’t meant to dine with these men in this house. Surely, it was a scene from theater of the absurd. The butler was wrong, and he was wrong, too. His will hung back, but his body swam inexorably into the room, shaking hands with seven men and one stunning woman.
“East Texas,” Bergstedt said in lieu of a profession for Sally Shaw. “She owns it!”
She turned to Lee, fluffing the mound of tawny hair that fell loosely on her thin shoulders. “Can you tell?”
“Evidently, she owns Paris, too!” Lee riposted, referring to her YSL frock, the black patent heels, the brimless horsehair hat, and an enormous diamond pendant.
Sally Shaw blushed with false modesty.
“What are you drinking, sir?” Harry asked.
Lee wavered, staring at Mrs. Shaw’s gleaming russet eyes.
She held up a glass of Campari. “Give him what I’m partaking of,” she said.
“We might all be writing books if we didn’t irrigate our cerebral cortex every night.” Peter Smithson said. He was the local GM dealer.
Bergstedt handed over a crystal tumbler of carmine liquid. “Dr. Green has been out West too long.”
“I once was a drinking man,” Lee said.
Don’t offer any personal information. Whipple instructed.
“But?” Sally Shaw bit her lower lip.
“It got away with me,” he explained what would likely be his only truthful words all evening.
Her penciled eyebrows arched. “Away with you?”
They crossed the foyer to the dining room, the walls hung with oil paintings of men in uniform, each dated from a war, the uniforms more distinctive than the faces — 1862, 1898, 1917, 1942, and a recent portrait of a youth in the garb of a Green Beret, Harry Bergstedt’s son, Hank, serving in Vietnam.
Harry sat at the head of the oval mahogany table. At each place setting was a white gilded charger, an acid green porcelain plate, six pieces of festooned silver cutlery, a crystal goblet also gilded, two wine glasses, and individual crystal decanters of cucumber water.
“Dr. Green sir, will you kindly lead us in the blessing?”
Around the table, they linked hands. Lee had rehearsed such things, but he needed to sound unrehearsed. He paused to listen to the paddle fan overhead. Then, he began to paraphrase words of gratitude for the munificent bounty, remembering to ask the blessing in the name of Jesus Christ, Our Lord. An utterance that terminated Leon Greenberg. Again.
Dinner conversation was filled with complaints about business, weather, family, golf. Although Sally asked Leland questions, he resisted. He did well at redirecting. After dinner, Harry ushered them back to the parlor for Napoleon brandy, chicory coffee, cake, and contraband Cuban cigars.
“We like your point of view, sir. We like how you phrase things. That’s what a good writer does.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lee said, forgetting for a few seconds that he was merely a good charlatan.
Never let down your guard. Whipple instructed emphatically.
“Jackson will be my base, but I want to roam around. I may even go as far as Texas.”
“You talking my country,” Sally said with gusto. “I got plenty of cotton pickers working in peaceful equilibrium.”
He noted with disappointment that Sally Shaw had read “Hailstorm.”
“Peaceful Equilibrium and Compassionate Segregation are slogans to propel a man to the mansion. Maybe, Harry wants to be gov’nor.”
“I think we have a convincing case, sir,” Harry’s voice crescendoed. “What does counsel think?”
Billy Clarkson brayed. “Counsel thinks he’ll have another brandy.”
“Our real concern isn’t the Negra. Negras, we know how to handle. We been handling Negras for hundreds of years. Feds don’t worry me. Excuse me, Missus Shaw, feds don’t know their bassackward from a hole in the ground. It’s Jews who know the difference. Jews are putting their money on the black. If you’re a roulette man, that’s worrisome. Jews are funding the entire goddamn nigger insurrection.”
Lee visibly shuddered.
“They’re not as smart as you think!” Billy Clarkson exclaimed.
“They are! They’re the smartest people in the world!”
Lee folded his arms. “I’ve met stupid Jews,” he said, thinking of his college roommate.
“Not possible,” Smithson interrupted.
Don’t come across as overly opinionated. Whipple instructed.
“There are stupid people everywhere,” Lee blurted.
“If you got stupid Jews, maybe you got genius Negroes,” Sally Shaw reflected.
Harry winked theatrically. “Try to walk a straight line, a woman throws a curve every time.”
***
Leland Green rented a carriage house in the Belhaven district and settled in with a portable Olivetti and a ream of paper. Except for Sunday church, he spent mornings at the library reading crime paperbacks. His favorites by Ian Fleming and Eric Ambler, the more vicious the better. Otherwise, he wrote notes to Whipple or made feeble attempts to outline Hailstorm’s new book. In the afternoon, he drove around the countryside, looking for signs of menace. Beside rail fences and at crossroad stores, he stopped to converse. It proved impossible to talk to frightened men. No one wanted a cold drink or a joke. No one except children let him take their picture. The Oregon license plate made him a foreigner.
Sally Shaw offered to escort him in her sporty Mercedes. To help him find “happy whites and happy coloreds,” she said.
Colored surprised him. He considered it enlightened, but the car made him squeamish. In Atlanta, no Jews drove German cars except his sister-in-law, Marilyn Steiner. “I accept,” he finally said despite the car and outfits that would feed a sharecropper’s family for months.
She headed east towards Bienville, swung off the blacktop at Morton, and bounced over a rutted dirt lane into the forest. The deepest ruts filled with chartreuse scum and mosquito larvae. She parked beside a small river underneath a splendid white oak. Lee lifted the metal cooler from Sally’s trunk, his eyes scanning her bare tan legs and the sleeveless cotton dress dotted with violets. The dress came with a matching parasol she carried in one hand and in the other a dainty wicker picnic basket.
“This isn’t much of a work mission,” Lee said, chewing a drumstick and sipping a cold beer.
“My work mission,” she lisped through her coruscating teeth.
“I’m not worth a mission, Mrs. Shaw,” he laughed. In fact, he laughed freely.
“I thought I’d show you where your boys hang out.”
“What do my boys do?”
“Boy things like drink, shoot at Coke bottles, hunt and fish. Who the hell knows? Chiggers are fierce so I stay over here and swim.”
“You don’t go for fish and game?”
“As uncouth as I am, I don’t like killing. I eat it once it’s dead, but I’m not a killer.”
Summer Brenner is the author of noir novels “I-5, A Novel of Crime, Transport, and Sex” and “Nearly Nowhere,” literary stories and books for young teens. Her teen book “Oakland Tales: Lost Secrets of the Town” received a 2015 Partners in Preservation award from the Oakland Heritage Alliance. Originally from Atlanta, Brenner is a longtime Berkeley resident. www.summerbrenner.com
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