VIVIAN DAVIS, AMERICAN
by Russell Thayer
“Vivian Davis, American” is inspired by the patriotic 1942 Hollywood film “Joe Smith, American,” starring Robert Young and Marsha Hunt. Average guy, Joe Smith, is a good American. He works hard at an aircraft factory, supporting the war effort and providing for his happy wife and son. Vivian Davis works at an aircraft factory, supporting the war effort in her own way. Neither one of them likes to be pushed around. They’re Americans.
Vivian Davis lifted her eyes from the glossy movie magazine. The new supervisor was yelling for her from the other end of the warehouse. The article had finally gotten around to describing what Carole Lombard was wearing when TWA Flight 3 smacked into a Nevada mountainside six months before. Vivian rolled up the magazine and shoved it into the back pocket of her coveralls.
Poor Carole, she thought as she rearranged some packing straw and tapped home the nails of the wooden lid with a ball-peen hammer. All those War Bond events. For what? She hauled the box of sensitive radio parts back to its spot, then stacked four undisturbed boxes on top of it. And now Gable is crying into his coffee every morning. Alone.
“Davis!” shouted Becker. “Get your lazy ass out here. I’ve got a job for you.”
Vivian slipped her hands into the spacious front pockets of her coveralls. The pouches held the platinum-coated protuberances she’d been snapping off the electronic machinery in the box she’d just hammered closed.
“What’s up, boss?” She strolled to the center aisle of the warehouse. “I was taking inventory.”
“That’s not your job. I need you to make a pickup. Pronto.”
“I get off in half an hour. How’s that gonna work?”
“You’ll earn some overtime. Don’t get all piqued. There’s a war on.”
“Why can’t one of the men go?” she asked, kicking at the base of a high shelf with her hard-toed boot.
“They’ve all got things to do after work.”
“Meaning wives and children, I suppose.”
“Don’t get blue. Some lucky guy is gonna fill you full of kids one day.”
Vivian stroked the precious metal as she stared at Becker with no expression. She had a date with her fence in two hours. Then she planned to change into a dress and go dancing. Kids were about as useless as those airplane radios she’d been tampering with.
“Okey-doke,” she said. “Let’s get this war over with.”
Becker ordered Vivian to sign out a truck and meet him at the security office in fifteen minutes. After chatting with the handsome dispatcher for half an hour, Vivian walked out to a 1.5-ton flatbed Ford. She checked the oil. Full for a change. The truck started with no trouble, and she hummed a few bars of Artie Shaw’s latest swing hit as the vehicle jumped forward. Heading to the date with Becker, Vivian alertly dodged a brand-new C-47 Skytrain as it rolled out of a hangar.
Raised voices came from the security office once she cut the motor. She hopped out of the cab and trotted up the stairs to see what everybody was griping about.
“What do you mean she can’t have a guard ride along with her?” said Becker. I’m not sending a woman out to make a Top-Secret pickup with no armed guard to protect her. That would be insane.”
Vivian rolled her eyes.
“Bruce is breaking up a brawl over in bookkeeping,” said Wilson. “Something’s not adding up.” The man grinned at his joke. “Anyway, the city cops had to be called. With all the squabble and paperwork, he’ll be over there the rest of the day.”
“Where am I going?” asked Vivian.
“Terminal Island,” said Becker.
“What’s the problem? I’ll take Highway 6 down and roll back to Santa Monica on the coast road.” Her fence lived in El Segundo. Perfect.
“You’ll be carrying a Top-Secret package. That’s the problem. It’s very important. If Jap spies get wind of it, they’ll run you off the road, steal the thing, and probably slit your throat.”
“Fuckin’ Japs,” said Wilson. “Pardon my language.”
“Why can’t you or fuckin’ Wilson here ride along with me?” asked Vivian. She knew they wouldn’t lift a finger. And they thought she was lazy.
“We’re both required to be on the premises at all times,” said Becker. “You’ll have to go alone. Damn it.”
“Do I get a sidearm? Or should I just run over any Jap I see?”
“We’re not handing out sidearms to women.”
“My father owned a pistol. He taught me how to use it.”
“No,” said Becker. “I’m not letting a woman anywhere near a pistol.”
“The pretty ones are the most dangerous,” said Wilson.
“Pretty pistols or pretty women?” said Becker, joining Wilson in a chuckle.
Vivian closed her eyes and ran both hands through waves of dark, shoulder-length hair. She suppressed the urge to yank it all out. With her movie-star looks, whistles and bad jokes followed her everywhere around the Douglas Aircraft plant. Drab green company coveralls couldn’t hide the body of a former chorus girl, and before swinging her legs on camera at MGM, she’d spread them for money during the Depression. She had no illusions about men, and wasn’t quick to take offense. Still, the banter had gotten stale.
“If you two are done cracking jokes, I’d like to get the hell out of here.”
* * *
“Paperwork seems to be in order, Miss. Sign here at the bottom and it’s all yours.” The Shore Patrol officer at the dock handed her the clipboard while a small crew hoisted the wooden crate onto the bed of the truck and lashed it down. “Where’s your security detail?”
“Nobody was available. It’s a short run. My supervisor figured it would be okay.”
“Why didn’t you bring a truck with a covered bed?”
Vivian glanced at the side of the crate. The words “TOP SECRET” had been stenciled onto the rough boards in large block letters. That was her fault, she supposed. A flatbed is what she usually drove. Everyone knew that. She often fetched sheets of aluminum from a fabricator in east Los Angeles. If she was supposed to make the pickup in a vehicle with a closed bed, someone should have told her.
“Sorry,” she said, scrunching her lips together in a pout, blinking her eyes at the man.
The SP officer left Vivian standing at the loading dock and went to talk on the telephone in a cute little guardhouse. He returned after a minute and they waited in silence together until another uniformed guy with an SP arm band hurried up to them, strapping on a belt and holster. He saluted the officer.
“Corporal Lowenstein is going to accompany you,” said the officer. “He can return by cab once the delivery has been made.”
“Okey-doke,” said Vivian. “Let’s go corporal.”
* * *
Lowenstein proved to be a delightful companion. A good-looking boy from Detroit, he sported wavy dark hair and soulful eyes. Jewish, she figured. He wouldn’t accept one of the Lucky Lagers Vivian offered from the six-pack she’d picked up on the way to Terminal Island, though he looked thirsty enough. Four now rattled around in the box, so she popped the cap off another as she steered with her elbow.
“I could have opened that for you,” said Lowenstein, taking the church key from her hand and setting it on the dashboard.
“I thought you were all spit and polish, kid.” Vivian drank slowly, looking him up and down.
“Eyes on the road, please,” he advised.
After ten minutes of chatting about their favorite jazz bands, the young Marine asked Vivian if she’d like to go dancing sometime. She said sure. He said he’d pick her up at her apartment Friday evening at 7:00 pm. She gave him an address in West Hollywood. He wrote it down in a little black notebook he kept in his breast pocket.
“Don’t get sore,” said Vivian, “but I have to stop and see a guy.”
“Are you kidding? That’s not protocol. If something goes wrong, I’ll get my ass handed to me.”
“It’s right here,” she said as she pulled to the curb outside of a small house with clapboard siding. A light blazed in the detached two-bay garage. “Won’t be a minute. Think about what I’ll be wearing Friday night.”
“Jesus,” said Lowenstein, cracking a smile. “You’re trouble.”
“And keep your eyes open. Might be a Jap or two tailing us.” She laughed as she hopped down from the cab, swinging her hips while she strolled to the garage.
A grease-covered man in a sleeveless white undershirt rolled out from under a sedan. His meaty, unshaven face broke into a smile as he got to his feet and began to wipe the grime off his hands.
“Good to see you, Viv. I mean it. What you got for me?”
“Prized platinum, Lou.”
“Bring it to the scale.”
“What’s it going for these days?” she asked.
“It’s been up around forty-five an ounce this month. Government needs the stuff for war production. Engine parts. Radio parts. I guess platinum melts at a higher -”
“How much will I get?”
“I’ll give you fifteen.” He placed the pile of parts she handed him onto the scale. “Might be about six ounces once I separate it from the metal rods.”
“Ninety bucks? Call me when you got it figured out. I’ll buy you a beer.” She looked back at the truck to see if Lowenstein was watching her. The cab was dark. She couldn’t make him out behind the glass.
“Viv,” said Lou, reaching up to pull the string of the bare overhead bulb.
“What?” She knew what.
“I’ll give you five for a tug,” he whispered from the shadows.
“Again? You’re gonna wear all the magic out of it.”
“Come on, Viv. I’m a lonely old guy. You’re so pretty. And…”
“What?”
“Naughty.”
“Thanks.”
“But nice.”
“Don’t push it,” she said, squeezing his three-piece set through worn dungarees. “I’ll give you a free one if you promise me twenty on the platinum exchange.”
“Ok. Ok. Sure.”
The deed was over in two minutes. Lou scampered into his house while Vivian wiped her hand on a rag. She chuckled as she walked back to the truck. She’d just made thirty bucks. Reaching up for the door handle, she felt the air stir as someone came up behind her.
* * *
Vivian’s head throbbed like a thumb crushed flat by a car door. She opened her eyes but could see only darkness. Was she blindfolded? Or blind now?
Someone in the room was making all the sounds of beating someone else with his fists. The ache in her skull never changed, so Vivian didn’t think it was her own head being belted. Lowenstein? The corporal? Why?
“Fuckin’ kike,” said a man.
She tried to move her hands to her head so she could take off the blindfold and the gag that was biting into the sides of her mouth, but they were tied behind her. Tight.
“He’s done,” said a second man. The sound of a body falling to the hard floor made Vivian aware of how much she needed to go to the bathroom after all that beer.
“The Fuehrer would be proud of us.”
“Put him in the trunk. We’ll dump him somewhere.”
“Let’s burn him,” said a third man.
Were they Nazis? Vivian had heard about the German American Bund, with their parades and rallies, sympathies for Hitler, and hatred of Jews, but she recalled how it was in all the newspapers when the group agreed to disband after Pearl Harbor.
“What about her?”
Vivian felt the men closing in, their shoes scraping the floor. Behind her back, the rope bit into her wrists.
“I’ve always wanted to do her hard,” said one man. She tried to place the voice. No luck.
“Don’t give away too much, Carl.”
Ah. Carl. Right. Big blonde guy. Bookkeeping.
“Who cares, Hank. She’ll never get a chance to identify us.” And Hank. Also bookkeeping. She’d often seen the two of them together smoking cigarettes outside the cafeteria. Staring at her with their tongues hanging out.
“I guess you’re finally gonna give me the time of day,” said Carl. Vivian felt herself lifted up and pushed back against a wall, the buttons of her cotton coveralls popping one by one down her front.
“Untie her hands, Smitty.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said the third man.
“I can’t get at her through these coveralls.”
“You could take the gag off and use her mouth,” said Hank. The men laughed at this.
“I don’t think so,” said Carl. “Not with those choppers. I’ll still need something to hold onto when I pee.”
Vivian decided to end the discussion by unleashing her own packed bladder. The sulfurous stench of urine filtered through the blindfold, reminding her that she’d consumed an asparagus salad at lunch in the plant cafeteria.
“Jesus,” said Carl. “You’re disgusting.” He then punched Vivian in the stomach as the warm piss continued to soak her clothing. She wasn’t ready for the blow, and slid down the wall in agony to curl into a ball, groaning as she chewed hard on the gag between her teeth. Then she felt liquid dribbling onto her blindfold, the stink and heat of warm urine forcing her to keep her eyes shut. She could feel the liquid in her hair, and where it pooled against the gag. Soon she could taste it.
“That felt good,” said Carl, pulling up his zipper while Vivian lay still, her face resting in a puddle on the floor.
“We’re supposed to bring the crate inside,” said Hank. “Then get rid of the truck. The boss is gonna bring a delivery van to move the package to its next stop. You’ll drive the van, Smitty, and he’ll take off in your rig.”
While the men went outside and fussed with the load, Vivian reached out with her boot. She felt a sharp pain in her abdomen, but kept probing around the floor. The boards had been sawn rough, and she guessed they’d taken her to a cabin in the woods. Her foot came in contact with what she figured was Lowenstein’s head. She tapped it gently on top. No movement. She pushed it around on its neck. Nothing. After pulling her knees together, she tried to free her hands again, but they were bound tight, and burned with pain where she’d been struggling against the coarse rope.
It was her fault she was in this predicament. For a lousy ninety bucks. If she’d just kept driving, maybe they couldn’t have jumped her. But there had to be a plan to do that, somewhere, so maybe it wasn’t really her fault. She felt bad for Lowenstein, no matter whose fault it was, and tried not to picture his lively face and friendly smile. The boy hadn’t asked for the detail, but might have gotten some pleasure out of it if they’d ever gotten to dancing Friday night. It wasn’t fair what happened to him, and she knew Jews had it tough.
Someone kicked the cabin door open. Grunting men dragged something across the floor.
“What’s in this fuckin’ thing?” asked Hank.
“An experimental gun is what I heard,” said Carl. “50 mm rapid-fire cannon. Uses armor-piercing rounds. Douglas Aircraft has been given the task of figuring out how to side-mount these things on a C-47 so it doesn’t shake the plane apart. Imagine how many tanks you could take out on the battlefield with a gun like that. You’d tear ships apart from the air.”
“Jesus. 50 mm. It’s only fair Hitler gets one, too.”
“Or that the Air Corps doesn’t get theirs.”
“How’s that gonna happen? Won’t they build another one once this thing is delivered to Berlin?”
“Not until they pick up all the pieces of the lab at Stanford where this baby was designed and assembled. The place is wired to go up like a bundle of firecrackers as soon as we get this package to a U-boat rendezvous off Santa Rosa Island tomorrow. It’ll take Uncle Sam two years to get this system back on track with their engineering plans and prototypes demolished.”
“Golly, that’s slick.”
Vivian wished the fools would stop talking her into her grave. The stupidest bad guys in the cheapest, dumbest Hollywood movies didn’t blabber this much.
Playing dead, her eyes closed tight to keep the burning urine out of them, she heard someone else enter the room. The man spoke German, sharply, which she didn’t, and there was authority in the cruel sounds. Vivian decided to open her eyes. Instead of blackness, she got a pretty good view through the urine-soaked cotton fabric. Carl hadn’t thought of that while he stood over her, jauntily pissing on her face. She could make out both men from the plant, and some chubby asshole she didn’t recognize. Smitty, they’d called him. Then the leader’s shoes stopped in front of her eyes. She focused on scuffed brown wingtips. Cream-colored vamp. What class. She watched as the new arrival drew one of the wingtips away from her face, his leg bending at the knee, then closed her eyes again as the shoe shot toward her, hoping it wasn’t for good.
* * *
Strong hands lifted Vivian out of unconsciousness. Ocean scents laced the night air as men carried her outside. The cabin must be closer to the beach than she’d imagined. One man hauled her by the boots. Another gripped her shoulders, her hands still bound behind her. The blindfold remained damp with urine, but she couldn’t see much in the darkness. With little conversation, they heaved her into the back seat of a sedan, face up, onto what felt like the corpse of poor Lowenstein. She could feel his chin pushing into her shoulder. Struggling to sit up on his chest, Vivian felt the front doors slam shut. The motor turned over.
“Head up to Lake Sherwood,” said Carl. “We’ll dump ‘em there. I’ll finish her off if you haven’t got the guts.”
“I’ll do it,” said Hank, “but that’s ten miles up, and ten miles back.”
“So? The crate’s loaded. We got time to get rid of these two. We’ll meet Smitty at Colby’s in Ventura, help him get the thing on the boat, then off we go. We’ll be back at work after our suspension like nothing happened. Like we made up after our little brawl.”
“That worked like a charm,” said Hank. “Sorry I decked you.”
If it was ten miles to Lake Sherwood. Vivian figured the cabin must be just off the Pacific Coast Highway. Around Malibu.
“Hey. Davis. Lie down.”
Vivian tilted to the side, hoping that would do. Her fingers brushed the pen in Lowenstein’s front pocket. She remembered how eagerly he’d written down her address.
“I said down.” Carl slapped her hard, knocking the blindfold akilter. With a quick glance through the open back window, she noted Smitty next to the door of a delivery vehicle as the sedan pulled away. The van looked black in the night, but she guessed it could be any dark color. Red even. White script on the windowless side panel advertised some elegant service, but Carl reached over the seat to grab her hair and pull her head down before she could focus on the letters. Her fingers clutched the pen.
As they pulled onto the Coast Highway, Vivian estimated the sedan’s speed, counting the minutes until they turned uphill on what had to be State Route 23. She’d driven for a living since getting shitcanned at MGM in 1939, and prided herself on her sense of distance and direction.
Working the knot against the tip of Lowenstein’s pen, Vivian felt it pull loose just enough so she could wiggle her hands free. With the gathered rope behind her, she thought about reaching over the seat and using it to violently strangle Hank, but the car might spin off the road if she tried that, killing all of them. Massaging her wrists, she decided to wait and see what opportunity might present itself at the lake.
After fifteen minutes, the sedan slowed.
Vivian brought a hand around to lift her blindfold some more, spotting the neon glow of a roadhouse at the junction of the lake turnoff.
The windows had been rolled down in the backseat of the sedan as well as the front. She knew how bad she smelled. As the vehicle came to a near stop to make the turn onto the unpaved road, Vivian pulled off the blindfold and dived through the open window, hitting the gravel hard with her hip and shoulder. Getting to her feet, she ran stiffly through the weeds, crossed a gully, and entered the roadhouse parking lot, stopping behind the most beautiful California Highway Patrol cruiser she’d ever seen. With relief flooding her body, she raised her middle fingers over shoulders and shook her bottom at the quickly reversing vehicle.
A shot rang out, the bullet skipping off the pavement to shatter the establishment’s window below the neon sign. Vivian ducked behind the patrol car just as the officer came out with his revolver drawn. He squatted down next to her, the kidnapper’s taillights fading as they raced back down the hill.
“What’s going on?” asked the officer.
“This is gonna take a while to explain,” said Vivian, “but you’d better get on the horn to your superiors and order some backup over here. Those are Nazis in that car, and they’ve stolen our nation’s top secret.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I work for Douglas Aircraft. I was transporting a prototype weapon to the plant by truck when they…uh…blocked the road with two automobiles and kidnapped my guard and me at gunpoint.”
“Where’s your guard?”
“In the back of their car. Dead. They’re driving a 1936 Plymouth. Gray, I think.”
“You reek of piss, young lady.”
“I know that. After nearly raping me, they tied me up, blindfolded me, and pissed all over my head.”
“And I can smell beer on your breath.”
“I’ll admit I’ve had a few, but I’m on the level.”
“Look, miss. I’m not an idiot. I’ve run into a lot of filthy girls like you in this area lately. Night prowlers looking for easy cash.” He grabbed her arm and spun her around to place handcuffs on her bruised wrists.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Vivian. “Those fiends are heading down to Ventura to meet with more Nazi bastards. Their plan is to hand over to Adolph Hitler the top-secret weapon I was delivering to the factory.”
The patrolman laughed.
“The only delivering you do, I expect, is to that heater of yours downstairs. And I don’t blame those chumps for taking a pot shot at you. You smell like a pig. Hardly worth two dollars, even if you aren’t bad looking.”
“Gee. Thanks. Now look at my tits. See that thing pinned above the left one? That’s my ID badge. See where it says Douglas Aircraft right at the top? See those digits? That’s my employee number and department. See the green button next to the yellow one? Green indicates clearance to pick up and deliver Top Secret packages. My name is Vivian Davis, and the boy they killed is Corporal Lowenstein. My guard. A nice kid. They were taking us out to the woods near Lake Sherwood to bury us. Why would I make this up?”
“Enough crazy talk outta you,” said the officer, as he shoved Vivian into the back of his patrol car, then climbed behind the wheel. “I’m taking you to the station in Thousand Oaks. You can sort it out there.”
“If you do, then the Krauts might win the war. Is that what you want? What sort of man are you? What sort of American? And why would I be whoring on Highway 23 when I make good money busting my ass for Douglas Aircraft?”
“Search me,” said the patrolman, but when he hit the highway, instead of turning toward Thousand Oaks, he sped toward the ocean.
Vivian hung over the back of the front seat as he drove, watching the road ahead. A double-barreled shotgun lay on the passenger seat. This is going to be fun, she thought.
“Why don’t you call it in?” she asked.
“Because I don’t want to be laughed off the force.”
“You won’t be. You’ll win a medal. Head to Colby’s in Ventura. It might be a diner.”
“It is.”
“That’s where they’re meeting up. Two guys were in the car that took a potshot at me. There’s another guy driving the van with the stolen weapon. I don’t know where their boss went, but they mentioned a U-boat off Santa Rosa Island. And a lab at Stanford, where the top-secret weapon was developed, is wired to blow as soon as the Krauts get it on the boat. We have to hurry.”
The officer radioed the information to his station as the car sped toward Ventura. An effusive reply came that a missing vehicle from Douglas Aircraft had indeed been reported. The Navy and SFPD would be notified immediately to deal with the other threats.
Once they entered Ventura, the patrolman approached Colby’s. He parked down the street. After opening his door, he picked up the shotgun.
“There’s the car,” said Vivian. “Take me with you. I can identify these mugs.”
The officer uncuffed Vivian.
“Stay behind me,” he said.
“Follow me first,” said Vivian, tiptoeing to the window of the Plymouth. She pointed into the back seat. The officer approached the car and looked inside.
“Jesus,” he said, raising the shotgun. “They beat the shit out of him.”
Through the front window of the diner, Vivian spotted Carl and Hank at the cash register with Smitty.
After pushing through the door, the men hurried down the sidewalk. Vivian pointed at Carl, who was in the lead.
“Look out, officer! That Nazi rat has a gun in his hand!”
The officer ventilated Carl’s torso.
“You bitch!” shouted Hank, reaching under his jacket
“He’s got a pistol!” screamed Vivian.
The second blast of the officer’s shotgun destroyed many of the organs situated in Hank’s abdomen. Smitty took off as the officer threw down the shotgun and drew his revolver. Bullets shattered two storefront windows, the windshield of a passing automobile, and the back of a craven Nazi.
Once the officer’s pistol clicked on empty cylinders, Vivian ran to Smitty and stood over his prone body. She kicked him in the side of his head.
“He’s kaput!” she shouted, slapping her hands together.
* * *
Every local, state, or military officer who came onto the scene hailed the highway patrolman as a national hero. Dozens of photographs snapped by newspapermen captured the officer posed next to Carl and Hank, his shotgun aimed at their glistening intestines. In another, he squatted next to Smitty’s bloody back, revolver in hand, a solemn look on his face.
Vivian sat on a park bench across the street, drinking coffee from a paper cup as the morgue hearses carried away the bodies. A naval officer got off his car radio and shouted to wild cheers that a patrolling Navy destroyer had sunk the waiting U-boat before the enemy vessel could escape the shallow waters around Santa Rosa Island. Another announcement came, met with hurrahs, that a large bomb had been disarmed in the basement of the Hintten Experimental Laboratory at Stanford.
Alone as dawn came on, Vivian walked to the misty public beach, deserted at that early hour, and found a large rock to sit beside. After reflecting on her place in the world, she stripped herself naked and carried her coveralls and underthings to the water, where she soaked them in a tidepool, then swam for a bit in the bracing surf, saltwater stinging the rope abrasions around her wrists and the knots where her skull had been battered by a nasty wingtip and some other object outside Lou’s place. Morning sun cleared the mist as Vivian rose from the waves and returned to the to the rock, spreading out her clothes amid the breeze.
In a parking lot twenty yards down the beach, a pair of hotrods rumbled to a stop. Four young men hopped out and began to unstrap surfboards from the car roofs. They noticed Vivian all at once, whistling as she scrambled to pull on her underthings. With hardly a second look, the men raced across the sand to crash into the waves with their boards.
After climbing into still-damp coveralls, Vivian pulled on her boots and began to stroll through the sleepy beach town, wondering who she could call to come pick her up. She felt in her pockets. No change. As she walked toward a small café just opening for breakfast, she spotted a dime on the sidewalk. Bending down to pick it up, something caught her eye in the alley across the street. There sat the delivery van. Schneider Floral. Looking both ways, she crossed over and peeked into the back. The Top-Secret weapon still sat inside.
“Suffering Christ,” she whispered. With all the photo-taking, back-slapping, congratulatory celebration, and hooting about vanquished Nazi peril, not one man had tracked down the missing weapon? How could the United States possibly win a war against a cunning enemy when glory was all its men seemed to think about? She’d already saved Europe by exposing the whole nefarious operation. Was she going to have to do everything for Uncle Sam?
Tired and sore, Vivian felt like walking away from Douglas Aircraft. Then she remembered it was she who had signed the paperwork at Terminal Island. It was she who was responsible for delivering the goods. Lowenstein’s life, also her responsibility, should mean something in the end.
The van’s door proved to be unlocked, but the keys were not inside. Well-trained at ACME Driving School, Vivian slipped onto the seat and began to fiddle with the wires below the steering column. Soon the motor roared to life. Throwing the van into reverse, Vivian backed onto the street and headed south out of town on the scenic coast highway.
After passing the junction toward Thousand Oaks, she spotted a turnoff away from the beach and had a hunch. Spinning in, she followed the dirt track for a hundred yards, stopping in front of a cabin surrounded by trees. And there, where the trail bent around behind the simple structure, still sat the Ford flatbed she’d signed-out at the plant. Vivian was responsible for that vehicle as much as anything else.
Parking the van, she found the keys on the seat of the truck, then explored the cabin. It offered nothing. Making the switcheroo from van to truck would take three men, at least. After snapping her fingers, she ran to the van, backed it around in the circular cabin drive and raced out to the coast road.
The boys had just finished strapping the wet boards onto their hot rods as she pulled up next to them. They drifted over to leer into her open windows.
“Hello again,” said a tall blond, muscles rippling across his tan chest. This wouldn’t be a difficult transaction.
“Hello, boys. I need some strong backs to move a heavy piece of furniture at my beach house.”
“Is this heavy piece of furniture another name for an itch you can’t scratch?” The blond winked at her.
“No, silly. It’s a real piece of heavy furniture. A piano in a box.”
“What’ll you pay us?”
“We’ll figure out something,” she said, winking back at him, wondering where they’d keep any money in those tight swimsuits.
The surfboards followed her back to the cabin and made quick work of shifting the load from van to flatbed.
“Why does a piano crate have TOP SECRET stenciled onto the outside of the box?” asked the blond.
Squat and long, the container was shaped nothing like a piano.
“It’s a secret,” she said, touching her lips with an index finger. “Now, who’s first?”
Four arms shot up, and Vivian made quick work of each boy behind the van. In ten minutes, with klaxons blaring, two happy hotrods sped off through the trees. Vivian found one last bottle of Lucky Lager under the seat of the truck, utilized the church key, and washed the taste of victory out of her mouth.
Two hours later Vivian rolled proudly through the main gate at Douglas Aircraft. After a horn-tooting lap around Clover Field, she delivered the top-secret crate to the armaments department, where she signed a few sheets of paperwork. When she returned the truck to the motor pool, she signed more paperwork, with a flourish, then slammed down the pen. Another job completed to perfection.
* * *
A week later, an office boy found Vivian asleep on a bench in the shade behind the dispatch office.
“Miss Davis?” The boy touched her knee.
“I already repainted the vehicle numbers. Do I have to do everything for you birdbrains?” She rubbed her eyes. “Oh. What’s up, squirt?”
“Becker wants you in his office. Pronto.”
Shuffling across the yard, Vivian wondered what this could be about. Her boss had barely talked to her since she returned to the plant with everything in order. She spotted a State Patrol car parked outside the office, along with a few vehicles she didn’t recognize.
She could see the crowd as she stomped slowly up the steps. Everyone smiled and clapped as she opened the door and stopped in the frame. A photographer’s bulb popped. Even the heroic patrolman smiled at her now.
“Miss Davis. Please come forward.” It was the President of Douglas Aircraft, his teeth sparkling under a trim gray moustache.
Vivian approached the well-dressed man, stopping in front of him. As he turned her around by the shoulder, camera bulbs flashed. Becker stood behind his desk, the patrolman next to her.
“This certificate of appreciation is for you, my dear,” said the President, handing her a heavy piece of paper stock, her name printed in dull block letters under the gold-stamped company logogram. “For your dedication to Douglas Aircraft and the war effort. You’re a real American hero, Vivian Davis.”
“Americans aren’t heroes, Sir,” she said as she folded the paper in half and shoved it into her back pocket. “We just don’t like to be pushed around.”
“Well said, young lady. And in addition to our undying gratitude, here’s a $5 gift certificate for See’s Candies. Good at any location in the greater Los Angeles area.”
As the room full of grateful Americans clapped, the certificate slipped from Vivian’s fingers, swooping to land under Becker’s desk. Vivian dropped to her knees and reached out to recover the thing, imagining how five dollars would buy a good number of See’s delicious hazelnut truffles. And then she noticed Becker’s shoes. Wingtips. With a white vamp.
A rush of blood made Vivian’s head spin when she stood. She clutched the edge of the desk. Her face burned so hot she knew it must be bright pink. She looked at Becker with a stern visage, her chin trembling, and he looked back at her with a harsh, knowing aspect. Wingtips were the fashion. She knew that. There was no other proof against Becker, so she turned away from the man, offering a weak smile for the cameras as she held up her gift certificate.
* * *
The following week, Becker caught Vivian going through his desk.
“You are out of your pretty head, young lady. In fact, you’re out on the street. Shitcanned. On your ass. I don’t care what sort of hero the company thinks you are, I won’t have you sneaking around my office while you’re supposed to be working.”
“I’ll get you,” said Vivian, “you Nazi pig.”
Becker made a circular motion outside of his right ear with his index finger while Vivian clenched her fists in the pockets of her coveralls, imagining him as gore under the wheels of a large truck.
“The cops thoroughly investigated me, along with every other manager at the plant. Each of us has been cleared of any suspicion. And do you think I’d be dumb enough to keep anything remotely incriminating in my office desk? No. I think you were looking for money. A common thief. That’s what you are. A common thief. Now get out. You’re done here at Douglas. Hand me your badge.”
Fuming at her locker as she collected her things, Vivian considered the square existence she’d been living since the day she returned the Top-Secret weapon and saved the world from fascist tyranny. She hadn’t stolen so much as a carton of milk from the cafeteria line. She hadn’t touched a man or gone out dancing once in the last month. She felt bad about Lowenstein. Her corrupt nature had cost him his life, and she’d recently endured an uncomfortable hour with his mother describing the boy’s wretched final moments.
“Fuck you, Becker,” she said, slamming the locker door. “I’m not a thief. Not anymore.”
After making a turn toward the electronics warehouse on her way out, Vivian snapped the platinum-coated flanges off a whole crate of fresh airplane radios, filling her purse. Outside of the administration building, she dumped them all into the glove compartment of Becker’s sweltering Packard. Every vehicle was now being searched at the gate. Thoroughly.
Russell Thayer’s work has appeared in Brushfire, Tough, Roi Fainéant Press, Guilty Crime Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Close to the Bone, Bristol Noir, Apocalypse Confidential, Hawaii Pacific Review, Shotgun Honey, Punk Noir, Pulp Modern, and Outcast Press. He received his BA in English from the University of Washington, worked for decades at large printing companies, and currently lives in Missoula, Montana. You can find him lurking on Twitter @RussellThayer10
by Russell Thayer
“Vivian Davis, American” is inspired by the patriotic 1942 Hollywood film “Joe Smith, American,” starring Robert Young and Marsha Hunt. Average guy, Joe Smith, is a good American. He works hard at an aircraft factory, supporting the war effort and providing for his happy wife and son. Vivian Davis works at an aircraft factory, supporting the war effort in her own way. Neither one of them likes to be pushed around. They’re Americans.
Vivian Davis lifted her eyes from the glossy movie magazine. The new supervisor was yelling for her from the other end of the warehouse. The article had finally gotten around to describing what Carole Lombard was wearing when TWA Flight 3 smacked into a Nevada mountainside six months before. Vivian rolled up the magazine and shoved it into the back pocket of her coveralls.
Poor Carole, she thought as she rearranged some packing straw and tapped home the nails of the wooden lid with a ball-peen hammer. All those War Bond events. For what? She hauled the box of sensitive radio parts back to its spot, then stacked four undisturbed boxes on top of it. And now Gable is crying into his coffee every morning. Alone.
“Davis!” shouted Becker. “Get your lazy ass out here. I’ve got a job for you.”
Vivian slipped her hands into the spacious front pockets of her coveralls. The pouches held the platinum-coated protuberances she’d been snapping off the electronic machinery in the box she’d just hammered closed.
“What’s up, boss?” She strolled to the center aisle of the warehouse. “I was taking inventory.”
“That’s not your job. I need you to make a pickup. Pronto.”
“I get off in half an hour. How’s that gonna work?”
“You’ll earn some overtime. Don’t get all piqued. There’s a war on.”
“Why can’t one of the men go?” she asked, kicking at the base of a high shelf with her hard-toed boot.
“They’ve all got things to do after work.”
“Meaning wives and children, I suppose.”
“Don’t get blue. Some lucky guy is gonna fill you full of kids one day.”
Vivian stroked the precious metal as she stared at Becker with no expression. She had a date with her fence in two hours. Then she planned to change into a dress and go dancing. Kids were about as useless as those airplane radios she’d been tampering with.
“Okey-doke,” she said. “Let’s get this war over with.”
Becker ordered Vivian to sign out a truck and meet him at the security office in fifteen minutes. After chatting with the handsome dispatcher for half an hour, Vivian walked out to a 1.5-ton flatbed Ford. She checked the oil. Full for a change. The truck started with no trouble, and she hummed a few bars of Artie Shaw’s latest swing hit as the vehicle jumped forward. Heading to the date with Becker, Vivian alertly dodged a brand-new C-47 Skytrain as it rolled out of a hangar.
Raised voices came from the security office once she cut the motor. She hopped out of the cab and trotted up the stairs to see what everybody was griping about.
“What do you mean she can’t have a guard ride along with her?” said Becker. I’m not sending a woman out to make a Top-Secret pickup with no armed guard to protect her. That would be insane.”
Vivian rolled her eyes.
“Bruce is breaking up a brawl over in bookkeeping,” said Wilson. “Something’s not adding up.” The man grinned at his joke. “Anyway, the city cops had to be called. With all the squabble and paperwork, he’ll be over there the rest of the day.”
“Where am I going?” asked Vivian.
“Terminal Island,” said Becker.
“What’s the problem? I’ll take Highway 6 down and roll back to Santa Monica on the coast road.” Her fence lived in El Segundo. Perfect.
“You’ll be carrying a Top-Secret package. That’s the problem. It’s very important. If Jap spies get wind of it, they’ll run you off the road, steal the thing, and probably slit your throat.”
“Fuckin’ Japs,” said Wilson. “Pardon my language.”
“Why can’t you or fuckin’ Wilson here ride along with me?” asked Vivian. She knew they wouldn’t lift a finger. And they thought she was lazy.
“We’re both required to be on the premises at all times,” said Becker. “You’ll have to go alone. Damn it.”
“Do I get a sidearm? Or should I just run over any Jap I see?”
“We’re not handing out sidearms to women.”
“My father owned a pistol. He taught me how to use it.”
“No,” said Becker. “I’m not letting a woman anywhere near a pistol.”
“The pretty ones are the most dangerous,” said Wilson.
“Pretty pistols or pretty women?” said Becker, joining Wilson in a chuckle.
Vivian closed her eyes and ran both hands through waves of dark, shoulder-length hair. She suppressed the urge to yank it all out. With her movie-star looks, whistles and bad jokes followed her everywhere around the Douglas Aircraft plant. Drab green company coveralls couldn’t hide the body of a former chorus girl, and before swinging her legs on camera at MGM, she’d spread them for money during the Depression. She had no illusions about men, and wasn’t quick to take offense. Still, the banter had gotten stale.
“If you two are done cracking jokes, I’d like to get the hell out of here.”
* * *
“Paperwork seems to be in order, Miss. Sign here at the bottom and it’s all yours.” The Shore Patrol officer at the dock handed her the clipboard while a small crew hoisted the wooden crate onto the bed of the truck and lashed it down. “Where’s your security detail?”
“Nobody was available. It’s a short run. My supervisor figured it would be okay.”
“Why didn’t you bring a truck with a covered bed?”
Vivian glanced at the side of the crate. The words “TOP SECRET” had been stenciled onto the rough boards in large block letters. That was her fault, she supposed. A flatbed is what she usually drove. Everyone knew that. She often fetched sheets of aluminum from a fabricator in east Los Angeles. If she was supposed to make the pickup in a vehicle with a closed bed, someone should have told her.
“Sorry,” she said, scrunching her lips together in a pout, blinking her eyes at the man.
The SP officer left Vivian standing at the loading dock and went to talk on the telephone in a cute little guardhouse. He returned after a minute and they waited in silence together until another uniformed guy with an SP arm band hurried up to them, strapping on a belt and holster. He saluted the officer.
“Corporal Lowenstein is going to accompany you,” said the officer. “He can return by cab once the delivery has been made.”
“Okey-doke,” said Vivian. “Let’s go corporal.”
* * *
Lowenstein proved to be a delightful companion. A good-looking boy from Detroit, he sported wavy dark hair and soulful eyes. Jewish, she figured. He wouldn’t accept one of the Lucky Lagers Vivian offered from the six-pack she’d picked up on the way to Terminal Island, though he looked thirsty enough. Four now rattled around in the box, so she popped the cap off another as she steered with her elbow.
“I could have opened that for you,” said Lowenstein, taking the church key from her hand and setting it on the dashboard.
“I thought you were all spit and polish, kid.” Vivian drank slowly, looking him up and down.
“Eyes on the road, please,” he advised.
After ten minutes of chatting about their favorite jazz bands, the young Marine asked Vivian if she’d like to go dancing sometime. She said sure. He said he’d pick her up at her apartment Friday evening at 7:00 pm. She gave him an address in West Hollywood. He wrote it down in a little black notebook he kept in his breast pocket.
“Don’t get sore,” said Vivian, “but I have to stop and see a guy.”
“Are you kidding? That’s not protocol. If something goes wrong, I’ll get my ass handed to me.”
“It’s right here,” she said as she pulled to the curb outside of a small house with clapboard siding. A light blazed in the detached two-bay garage. “Won’t be a minute. Think about what I’ll be wearing Friday night.”
“Jesus,” said Lowenstein, cracking a smile. “You’re trouble.”
“And keep your eyes open. Might be a Jap or two tailing us.” She laughed as she hopped down from the cab, swinging her hips while she strolled to the garage.
A grease-covered man in a sleeveless white undershirt rolled out from under a sedan. His meaty, unshaven face broke into a smile as he got to his feet and began to wipe the grime off his hands.
“Good to see you, Viv. I mean it. What you got for me?”
“Prized platinum, Lou.”
“Bring it to the scale.”
“What’s it going for these days?” she asked.
“It’s been up around forty-five an ounce this month. Government needs the stuff for war production. Engine parts. Radio parts. I guess platinum melts at a higher -”
“How much will I get?”
“I’ll give you fifteen.” He placed the pile of parts she handed him onto the scale. “Might be about six ounces once I separate it from the metal rods.”
“Ninety bucks? Call me when you got it figured out. I’ll buy you a beer.” She looked back at the truck to see if Lowenstein was watching her. The cab was dark. She couldn’t make him out behind the glass.
“Viv,” said Lou, reaching up to pull the string of the bare overhead bulb.
“What?” She knew what.
“I’ll give you five for a tug,” he whispered from the shadows.
“Again? You’re gonna wear all the magic out of it.”
“Come on, Viv. I’m a lonely old guy. You’re so pretty. And…”
“What?”
“Naughty.”
“Thanks.”
“But nice.”
“Don’t push it,” she said, squeezing his three-piece set through worn dungarees. “I’ll give you a free one if you promise me twenty on the platinum exchange.”
“Ok. Ok. Sure.”
The deed was over in two minutes. Lou scampered into his house while Vivian wiped her hand on a rag. She chuckled as she walked back to the truck. She’d just made thirty bucks. Reaching up for the door handle, she felt the air stir as someone came up behind her.
* * *
Vivian’s head throbbed like a thumb crushed flat by a car door. She opened her eyes but could see only darkness. Was she blindfolded? Or blind now?
Someone in the room was making all the sounds of beating someone else with his fists. The ache in her skull never changed, so Vivian didn’t think it was her own head being belted. Lowenstein? The corporal? Why?
“Fuckin’ kike,” said a man.
She tried to move her hands to her head so she could take off the blindfold and the gag that was biting into the sides of her mouth, but they were tied behind her. Tight.
“He’s done,” said a second man. The sound of a body falling to the hard floor made Vivian aware of how much she needed to go to the bathroom after all that beer.
“The Fuehrer would be proud of us.”
“Put him in the trunk. We’ll dump him somewhere.”
“Let’s burn him,” said a third man.
Were they Nazis? Vivian had heard about the German American Bund, with their parades and rallies, sympathies for Hitler, and hatred of Jews, but she recalled how it was in all the newspapers when the group agreed to disband after Pearl Harbor.
“What about her?”
Vivian felt the men closing in, their shoes scraping the floor. Behind her back, the rope bit into her wrists.
“I’ve always wanted to do her hard,” said one man. She tried to place the voice. No luck.
“Don’t give away too much, Carl.”
Ah. Carl. Right. Big blonde guy. Bookkeeping.
“Who cares, Hank. She’ll never get a chance to identify us.” And Hank. Also bookkeeping. She’d often seen the two of them together smoking cigarettes outside the cafeteria. Staring at her with their tongues hanging out.
“I guess you’re finally gonna give me the time of day,” said Carl. Vivian felt herself lifted up and pushed back against a wall, the buttons of her cotton coveralls popping one by one down her front.
“Untie her hands, Smitty.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said the third man.
“I can’t get at her through these coveralls.”
“You could take the gag off and use her mouth,” said Hank. The men laughed at this.
“I don’t think so,” said Carl. “Not with those choppers. I’ll still need something to hold onto when I pee.”
Vivian decided to end the discussion by unleashing her own packed bladder. The sulfurous stench of urine filtered through the blindfold, reminding her that she’d consumed an asparagus salad at lunch in the plant cafeteria.
“Jesus,” said Carl. “You’re disgusting.” He then punched Vivian in the stomach as the warm piss continued to soak her clothing. She wasn’t ready for the blow, and slid down the wall in agony to curl into a ball, groaning as she chewed hard on the gag between her teeth. Then she felt liquid dribbling onto her blindfold, the stink and heat of warm urine forcing her to keep her eyes shut. She could feel the liquid in her hair, and where it pooled against the gag. Soon she could taste it.
“That felt good,” said Carl, pulling up his zipper while Vivian lay still, her face resting in a puddle on the floor.
“We’re supposed to bring the crate inside,” said Hank. “Then get rid of the truck. The boss is gonna bring a delivery van to move the package to its next stop. You’ll drive the van, Smitty, and he’ll take off in your rig.”
While the men went outside and fussed with the load, Vivian reached out with her boot. She felt a sharp pain in her abdomen, but kept probing around the floor. The boards had been sawn rough, and she guessed they’d taken her to a cabin in the woods. Her foot came in contact with what she figured was Lowenstein’s head. She tapped it gently on top. No movement. She pushed it around on its neck. Nothing. After pulling her knees together, she tried to free her hands again, but they were bound tight, and burned with pain where she’d been struggling against the coarse rope.
It was her fault she was in this predicament. For a lousy ninety bucks. If she’d just kept driving, maybe they couldn’t have jumped her. But there had to be a plan to do that, somewhere, so maybe it wasn’t really her fault. She felt bad for Lowenstein, no matter whose fault it was, and tried not to picture his lively face and friendly smile. The boy hadn’t asked for the detail, but might have gotten some pleasure out of it if they’d ever gotten to dancing Friday night. It wasn’t fair what happened to him, and she knew Jews had it tough.
Someone kicked the cabin door open. Grunting men dragged something across the floor.
“What’s in this fuckin’ thing?” asked Hank.
“An experimental gun is what I heard,” said Carl. “50 mm rapid-fire cannon. Uses armor-piercing rounds. Douglas Aircraft has been given the task of figuring out how to side-mount these things on a C-47 so it doesn’t shake the plane apart. Imagine how many tanks you could take out on the battlefield with a gun like that. You’d tear ships apart from the air.”
“Jesus. 50 mm. It’s only fair Hitler gets one, too.”
“Or that the Air Corps doesn’t get theirs.”
“How’s that gonna happen? Won’t they build another one once this thing is delivered to Berlin?”
“Not until they pick up all the pieces of the lab at Stanford where this baby was designed and assembled. The place is wired to go up like a bundle of firecrackers as soon as we get this package to a U-boat rendezvous off Santa Rosa Island tomorrow. It’ll take Uncle Sam two years to get this system back on track with their engineering plans and prototypes demolished.”
“Golly, that’s slick.”
Vivian wished the fools would stop talking her into her grave. The stupidest bad guys in the cheapest, dumbest Hollywood movies didn’t blabber this much.
Playing dead, her eyes closed tight to keep the burning urine out of them, she heard someone else enter the room. The man spoke German, sharply, which she didn’t, and there was authority in the cruel sounds. Vivian decided to open her eyes. Instead of blackness, she got a pretty good view through the urine-soaked cotton fabric. Carl hadn’t thought of that while he stood over her, jauntily pissing on her face. She could make out both men from the plant, and some chubby asshole she didn’t recognize. Smitty, they’d called him. Then the leader’s shoes stopped in front of her eyes. She focused on scuffed brown wingtips. Cream-colored vamp. What class. She watched as the new arrival drew one of the wingtips away from her face, his leg bending at the knee, then closed her eyes again as the shoe shot toward her, hoping it wasn’t for good.
* * *
Strong hands lifted Vivian out of unconsciousness. Ocean scents laced the night air as men carried her outside. The cabin must be closer to the beach than she’d imagined. One man hauled her by the boots. Another gripped her shoulders, her hands still bound behind her. The blindfold remained damp with urine, but she couldn’t see much in the darkness. With little conversation, they heaved her into the back seat of a sedan, face up, onto what felt like the corpse of poor Lowenstein. She could feel his chin pushing into her shoulder. Struggling to sit up on his chest, Vivian felt the front doors slam shut. The motor turned over.
“Head up to Lake Sherwood,” said Carl. “We’ll dump ‘em there. I’ll finish her off if you haven’t got the guts.”
“I’ll do it,” said Hank, “but that’s ten miles up, and ten miles back.”
“So? The crate’s loaded. We got time to get rid of these two. We’ll meet Smitty at Colby’s in Ventura, help him get the thing on the boat, then off we go. We’ll be back at work after our suspension like nothing happened. Like we made up after our little brawl.”
“That worked like a charm,” said Hank. “Sorry I decked you.”
If it was ten miles to Lake Sherwood. Vivian figured the cabin must be just off the Pacific Coast Highway. Around Malibu.
“Hey. Davis. Lie down.”
Vivian tilted to the side, hoping that would do. Her fingers brushed the pen in Lowenstein’s front pocket. She remembered how eagerly he’d written down her address.
“I said down.” Carl slapped her hard, knocking the blindfold akilter. With a quick glance through the open back window, she noted Smitty next to the door of a delivery vehicle as the sedan pulled away. The van looked black in the night, but she guessed it could be any dark color. Red even. White script on the windowless side panel advertised some elegant service, but Carl reached over the seat to grab her hair and pull her head down before she could focus on the letters. Her fingers clutched the pen.
As they pulled onto the Coast Highway, Vivian estimated the sedan’s speed, counting the minutes until they turned uphill on what had to be State Route 23. She’d driven for a living since getting shitcanned at MGM in 1939, and prided herself on her sense of distance and direction.
Working the knot against the tip of Lowenstein’s pen, Vivian felt it pull loose just enough so she could wiggle her hands free. With the gathered rope behind her, she thought about reaching over the seat and using it to violently strangle Hank, but the car might spin off the road if she tried that, killing all of them. Massaging her wrists, she decided to wait and see what opportunity might present itself at the lake.
After fifteen minutes, the sedan slowed.
Vivian brought a hand around to lift her blindfold some more, spotting the neon glow of a roadhouse at the junction of the lake turnoff.
The windows had been rolled down in the backseat of the sedan as well as the front. She knew how bad she smelled. As the vehicle came to a near stop to make the turn onto the unpaved road, Vivian pulled off the blindfold and dived through the open window, hitting the gravel hard with her hip and shoulder. Getting to her feet, she ran stiffly through the weeds, crossed a gully, and entered the roadhouse parking lot, stopping behind the most beautiful California Highway Patrol cruiser she’d ever seen. With relief flooding her body, she raised her middle fingers over shoulders and shook her bottom at the quickly reversing vehicle.
A shot rang out, the bullet skipping off the pavement to shatter the establishment’s window below the neon sign. Vivian ducked behind the patrol car just as the officer came out with his revolver drawn. He squatted down next to her, the kidnapper’s taillights fading as they raced back down the hill.
“What’s going on?” asked the officer.
“This is gonna take a while to explain,” said Vivian, “but you’d better get on the horn to your superiors and order some backup over here. Those are Nazis in that car, and they’ve stolen our nation’s top secret.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I work for Douglas Aircraft. I was transporting a prototype weapon to the plant by truck when they…uh…blocked the road with two automobiles and kidnapped my guard and me at gunpoint.”
“Where’s your guard?”
“In the back of their car. Dead. They’re driving a 1936 Plymouth. Gray, I think.”
“You reek of piss, young lady.”
“I know that. After nearly raping me, they tied me up, blindfolded me, and pissed all over my head.”
“And I can smell beer on your breath.”
“I’ll admit I’ve had a few, but I’m on the level.”
“Look, miss. I’m not an idiot. I’ve run into a lot of filthy girls like you in this area lately. Night prowlers looking for easy cash.” He grabbed her arm and spun her around to place handcuffs on her bruised wrists.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” said Vivian. “Those fiends are heading down to Ventura to meet with more Nazi bastards. Their plan is to hand over to Adolph Hitler the top-secret weapon I was delivering to the factory.”
The patrolman laughed.
“The only delivering you do, I expect, is to that heater of yours downstairs. And I don’t blame those chumps for taking a pot shot at you. You smell like a pig. Hardly worth two dollars, even if you aren’t bad looking.”
“Gee. Thanks. Now look at my tits. See that thing pinned above the left one? That’s my ID badge. See where it says Douglas Aircraft right at the top? See those digits? That’s my employee number and department. See the green button next to the yellow one? Green indicates clearance to pick up and deliver Top Secret packages. My name is Vivian Davis, and the boy they killed is Corporal Lowenstein. My guard. A nice kid. They were taking us out to the woods near Lake Sherwood to bury us. Why would I make this up?”
“Enough crazy talk outta you,” said the officer, as he shoved Vivian into the back of his patrol car, then climbed behind the wheel. “I’m taking you to the station in Thousand Oaks. You can sort it out there.”
“If you do, then the Krauts might win the war. Is that what you want? What sort of man are you? What sort of American? And why would I be whoring on Highway 23 when I make good money busting my ass for Douglas Aircraft?”
“Search me,” said the patrolman, but when he hit the highway, instead of turning toward Thousand Oaks, he sped toward the ocean.
Vivian hung over the back of the front seat as he drove, watching the road ahead. A double-barreled shotgun lay on the passenger seat. This is going to be fun, she thought.
“Why don’t you call it in?” she asked.
“Because I don’t want to be laughed off the force.”
“You won’t be. You’ll win a medal. Head to Colby’s in Ventura. It might be a diner.”
“It is.”
“That’s where they’re meeting up. Two guys were in the car that took a potshot at me. There’s another guy driving the van with the stolen weapon. I don’t know where their boss went, but they mentioned a U-boat off Santa Rosa Island. And a lab at Stanford, where the top-secret weapon was developed, is wired to blow as soon as the Krauts get it on the boat. We have to hurry.”
The officer radioed the information to his station as the car sped toward Ventura. An effusive reply came that a missing vehicle from Douglas Aircraft had indeed been reported. The Navy and SFPD would be notified immediately to deal with the other threats.
Once they entered Ventura, the patrolman approached Colby’s. He parked down the street. After opening his door, he picked up the shotgun.
“There’s the car,” said Vivian. “Take me with you. I can identify these mugs.”
The officer uncuffed Vivian.
“Stay behind me,” he said.
“Follow me first,” said Vivian, tiptoeing to the window of the Plymouth. She pointed into the back seat. The officer approached the car and looked inside.
“Jesus,” he said, raising the shotgun. “They beat the shit out of him.”
Through the front window of the diner, Vivian spotted Carl and Hank at the cash register with Smitty.
After pushing through the door, the men hurried down the sidewalk. Vivian pointed at Carl, who was in the lead.
“Look out, officer! That Nazi rat has a gun in his hand!”
The officer ventilated Carl’s torso.
“You bitch!” shouted Hank, reaching under his jacket
“He’s got a pistol!” screamed Vivian.
The second blast of the officer’s shotgun destroyed many of the organs situated in Hank’s abdomen. Smitty took off as the officer threw down the shotgun and drew his revolver. Bullets shattered two storefront windows, the windshield of a passing automobile, and the back of a craven Nazi.
Once the officer’s pistol clicked on empty cylinders, Vivian ran to Smitty and stood over his prone body. She kicked him in the side of his head.
“He’s kaput!” she shouted, slapping her hands together.
* * *
Every local, state, or military officer who came onto the scene hailed the highway patrolman as a national hero. Dozens of photographs snapped by newspapermen captured the officer posed next to Carl and Hank, his shotgun aimed at their glistening intestines. In another, he squatted next to Smitty’s bloody back, revolver in hand, a solemn look on his face.
Vivian sat on a park bench across the street, drinking coffee from a paper cup as the morgue hearses carried away the bodies. A naval officer got off his car radio and shouted to wild cheers that a patrolling Navy destroyer had sunk the waiting U-boat before the enemy vessel could escape the shallow waters around Santa Rosa Island. Another announcement came, met with hurrahs, that a large bomb had been disarmed in the basement of the Hintten Experimental Laboratory at Stanford.
Alone as dawn came on, Vivian walked to the misty public beach, deserted at that early hour, and found a large rock to sit beside. After reflecting on her place in the world, she stripped herself naked and carried her coveralls and underthings to the water, where she soaked them in a tidepool, then swam for a bit in the bracing surf, saltwater stinging the rope abrasions around her wrists and the knots where her skull had been battered by a nasty wingtip and some other object outside Lou’s place. Morning sun cleared the mist as Vivian rose from the waves and returned to the to the rock, spreading out her clothes amid the breeze.
In a parking lot twenty yards down the beach, a pair of hotrods rumbled to a stop. Four young men hopped out and began to unstrap surfboards from the car roofs. They noticed Vivian all at once, whistling as she scrambled to pull on her underthings. With hardly a second look, the men raced across the sand to crash into the waves with their boards.
After climbing into still-damp coveralls, Vivian pulled on her boots and began to stroll through the sleepy beach town, wondering who she could call to come pick her up. She felt in her pockets. No change. As she walked toward a small café just opening for breakfast, she spotted a dime on the sidewalk. Bending down to pick it up, something caught her eye in the alley across the street. There sat the delivery van. Schneider Floral. Looking both ways, she crossed over and peeked into the back. The Top-Secret weapon still sat inside.
“Suffering Christ,” she whispered. With all the photo-taking, back-slapping, congratulatory celebration, and hooting about vanquished Nazi peril, not one man had tracked down the missing weapon? How could the United States possibly win a war against a cunning enemy when glory was all its men seemed to think about? She’d already saved Europe by exposing the whole nefarious operation. Was she going to have to do everything for Uncle Sam?
Tired and sore, Vivian felt like walking away from Douglas Aircraft. Then she remembered it was she who had signed the paperwork at Terminal Island. It was she who was responsible for delivering the goods. Lowenstein’s life, also her responsibility, should mean something in the end.
The van’s door proved to be unlocked, but the keys were not inside. Well-trained at ACME Driving School, Vivian slipped onto the seat and began to fiddle with the wires below the steering column. Soon the motor roared to life. Throwing the van into reverse, Vivian backed onto the street and headed south out of town on the scenic coast highway.
After passing the junction toward Thousand Oaks, she spotted a turnoff away from the beach and had a hunch. Spinning in, she followed the dirt track for a hundred yards, stopping in front of a cabin surrounded by trees. And there, where the trail bent around behind the simple structure, still sat the Ford flatbed she’d signed-out at the plant. Vivian was responsible for that vehicle as much as anything else.
Parking the van, she found the keys on the seat of the truck, then explored the cabin. It offered nothing. Making the switcheroo from van to truck would take three men, at least. After snapping her fingers, she ran to the van, backed it around in the circular cabin drive and raced out to the coast road.
The boys had just finished strapping the wet boards onto their hot rods as she pulled up next to them. They drifted over to leer into her open windows.
“Hello again,” said a tall blond, muscles rippling across his tan chest. This wouldn’t be a difficult transaction.
“Hello, boys. I need some strong backs to move a heavy piece of furniture at my beach house.”
“Is this heavy piece of furniture another name for an itch you can’t scratch?” The blond winked at her.
“No, silly. It’s a real piece of heavy furniture. A piano in a box.”
“What’ll you pay us?”
“We’ll figure out something,” she said, winking back at him, wondering where they’d keep any money in those tight swimsuits.
The surfboards followed her back to the cabin and made quick work of shifting the load from van to flatbed.
“Why does a piano crate have TOP SECRET stenciled onto the outside of the box?” asked the blond.
Squat and long, the container was shaped nothing like a piano.
“It’s a secret,” she said, touching her lips with an index finger. “Now, who’s first?”
Four arms shot up, and Vivian made quick work of each boy behind the van. In ten minutes, with klaxons blaring, two happy hotrods sped off through the trees. Vivian found one last bottle of Lucky Lager under the seat of the truck, utilized the church key, and washed the taste of victory out of her mouth.
Two hours later Vivian rolled proudly through the main gate at Douglas Aircraft. After a horn-tooting lap around Clover Field, she delivered the top-secret crate to the armaments department, where she signed a few sheets of paperwork. When she returned the truck to the motor pool, she signed more paperwork, with a flourish, then slammed down the pen. Another job completed to perfection.
* * *
A week later, an office boy found Vivian asleep on a bench in the shade behind the dispatch office.
“Miss Davis?” The boy touched her knee.
“I already repainted the vehicle numbers. Do I have to do everything for you birdbrains?” She rubbed her eyes. “Oh. What’s up, squirt?”
“Becker wants you in his office. Pronto.”
Shuffling across the yard, Vivian wondered what this could be about. Her boss had barely talked to her since she returned to the plant with everything in order. She spotted a State Patrol car parked outside the office, along with a few vehicles she didn’t recognize.
She could see the crowd as she stomped slowly up the steps. Everyone smiled and clapped as she opened the door and stopped in the frame. A photographer’s bulb popped. Even the heroic patrolman smiled at her now.
“Miss Davis. Please come forward.” It was the President of Douglas Aircraft, his teeth sparkling under a trim gray moustache.
Vivian approached the well-dressed man, stopping in front of him. As he turned her around by the shoulder, camera bulbs flashed. Becker stood behind his desk, the patrolman next to her.
“This certificate of appreciation is for you, my dear,” said the President, handing her a heavy piece of paper stock, her name printed in dull block letters under the gold-stamped company logogram. “For your dedication to Douglas Aircraft and the war effort. You’re a real American hero, Vivian Davis.”
“Americans aren’t heroes, Sir,” she said as she folded the paper in half and shoved it into her back pocket. “We just don’t like to be pushed around.”
“Well said, young lady. And in addition to our undying gratitude, here’s a $5 gift certificate for See’s Candies. Good at any location in the greater Los Angeles area.”
As the room full of grateful Americans clapped, the certificate slipped from Vivian’s fingers, swooping to land under Becker’s desk. Vivian dropped to her knees and reached out to recover the thing, imagining how five dollars would buy a good number of See’s delicious hazelnut truffles. And then she noticed Becker’s shoes. Wingtips. With a white vamp.
A rush of blood made Vivian’s head spin when she stood. She clutched the edge of the desk. Her face burned so hot she knew it must be bright pink. She looked at Becker with a stern visage, her chin trembling, and he looked back at her with a harsh, knowing aspect. Wingtips were the fashion. She knew that. There was no other proof against Becker, so she turned away from the man, offering a weak smile for the cameras as she held up her gift certificate.
* * *
The following week, Becker caught Vivian going through his desk.
“You are out of your pretty head, young lady. In fact, you’re out on the street. Shitcanned. On your ass. I don’t care what sort of hero the company thinks you are, I won’t have you sneaking around my office while you’re supposed to be working.”
“I’ll get you,” said Vivian, “you Nazi pig.”
Becker made a circular motion outside of his right ear with his index finger while Vivian clenched her fists in the pockets of her coveralls, imagining him as gore under the wheels of a large truck.
“The cops thoroughly investigated me, along with every other manager at the plant. Each of us has been cleared of any suspicion. And do you think I’d be dumb enough to keep anything remotely incriminating in my office desk? No. I think you were looking for money. A common thief. That’s what you are. A common thief. Now get out. You’re done here at Douglas. Hand me your badge.”
Fuming at her locker as she collected her things, Vivian considered the square existence she’d been living since the day she returned the Top-Secret weapon and saved the world from fascist tyranny. She hadn’t stolen so much as a carton of milk from the cafeteria line. She hadn’t touched a man or gone out dancing once in the last month. She felt bad about Lowenstein. Her corrupt nature had cost him his life, and she’d recently endured an uncomfortable hour with his mother describing the boy’s wretched final moments.
“Fuck you, Becker,” she said, slamming the locker door. “I’m not a thief. Not anymore.”
After making a turn toward the electronics warehouse on her way out, Vivian snapped the platinum-coated flanges off a whole crate of fresh airplane radios, filling her purse. Outside of the administration building, she dumped them all into the glove compartment of Becker’s sweltering Packard. Every vehicle was now being searched at the gate. Thoroughly.
Russell Thayer’s work has appeared in Brushfire, Tough, Roi Fainéant Press, Guilty Crime Magazine, Mystery Tribune, Close to the Bone, Bristol Noir, Apocalypse Confidential, Hawaii Pacific Review, Shotgun Honey, Punk Noir, Pulp Modern, and Outcast Press. He received his BA in English from the University of Washington, worked for decades at large printing companies, and currently lives in Missoula, Montana. You can find him lurking on Twitter @RussellThayer10