Written: Gladstone Blvd. Shreveport LA, 2004
ANGELUS OF DOOM
Farmington New Mexico
1955
Tension at the Snooker 8
Bill Smith wiped a bead of sweat from his brow as he squatted down and looked up over the edge of the pool table at the brown leather bottle. It was perched upside down and its base was covered with $20 bills. Bill noticed that the bottle, about six inches tall and shaped like a small narrow-necked milkbottle, was about a sixteenth of an inch away from the rail midway between a side pocket and a corner pocket on the snooker table. The bills on the base actually hung out over the top of the rail, about three inches from Bill’s squinted eyes.
The poolroom was dark, except for the fluorescent light directly above the table, but Bill imagined that he could see among the shadows that shifted just outside the range of the light, pairs of red, unblinking eyes that seemed to follow every move he made. The murmurs among the shadows were unintelligible but Bill knew they concerned infamous bottle pool games of past years, when the legendary Jicarilla Pete Felch or Totah Bosco played with $100 bills.
In the far back of the Snooker 8 poolroom Bill could hear the clack of dominos from the same four old men who’d been playing there daily since the war. He stood up and chalked his cue for the third time as he walked around the table, ignoring the baleful gaze of the burly, bullet-headed man who stood near the table.
“That bottle’s not goin’ anywhere, Bill—are you?” the man asked, and the shadows chuckled and coughed.
“My wells haven’t come in yet, Tom, so I kinda look at those 20s a little different than you do,” Bill retorted, placing his cue on the rail and lining up what looked to be a three-rail shot. A nervous titter ran through the room. The shot he was lining up was dangerous—he’d be trying to make the 9 ball in the corner pocket and it would miss the bottle by about a half inch—if he made the shot. If he didn’t, the cue ball or the nine ball might hit the topheavy bottle and knock it over. If that happened he’d have to add a $20 bill to the pile of bills and put the bottle back upside down with the bills on top of it, draped across the base of the bottle. Then Tom Bolack, his beefy opponent, would have a shot at making the nine and collecting the money on the bottle.
Bill wasn’t worried so much about anteing up another $20 if he knocked the bottle over on the table. What would be disastrous was if the bottle and money fell on the rail or on the floor. Then he’d have to match the pile of $20s and there were at least two dozen of them.
Bill tried to shut out the distractions of Bolack and the derelict shadows as he lined up the shot. Another bead of sweat dripped into his eye and he wiped it off and chalked his cue yet another time. He was vaguely aware of a church bell tolling mournfully three times in the distant background. Maybe they’re tolling for me—if I miss this shot?
It really was a desperate shot—three rails before the cue ball even hits the nine, and then the nine would have to have enough oomph to shoot past the bottle into the corner pocket. He couldn’t shoot a finesse shot. He had to hit the cueball damned hard and hope he didn’t get a vertical bounce when it slammed off the rails. A bouncing cueball could knock the bottle off the table easy.
Bill knew he shouldn’t have accepted Bolack’s challenge of ending the session with a high stakes bottle pool game. He was better than the oilman, all right, but sometimes the bottle laughs at the better player. And Bolack had bottomless pockets when it came to competition. If he knocked the bottle on the floor, he’d just peel off a few more $20s from the roll in his overalls. If Bill had to match the pot—and lost—his wife Geneva would have his lunch for breakfast. He was pulling down $200 a week at Miley Mud and Chemical but they were also buying a pricey little MG.
The bell had stopped but just as Bill was getting ready to bring the cue back for his shot, it rang again—three times. Bill grinned nervously and relaxed again for the shot. He chalked his cue again then drew the stick back and—just before he slammed the cuestick into the cueball, the bell rang once more. Three times.
Tom Bolack guffawed. “For whom are them bells tollin’ for, eh, Bill? For thee?” This brought numerous cackles from the shadow gallery.
Bill was angry that Bolack had usurped his literary metaphor but shrugged it off and hunkered down to make the shot. He took his time because of the importance of the shot and just as he drew back—the damn bell started tolling again—and kept tolling. This time even Bill laughed out loud. “Okay, now it’s a sign. A sign that I’m going to make this shot and walk out of here with your money in my pocket.”
He set the cue down on the rail and held it steady with his left hand. His right hand drew back once, twice, three times and with complete silence in the poolroom—broken only by the seemingly eternal bell in the distance—Bill grunted and whipped his right arm forward.
“Bill!” “Skkkrrraaaack!”
The sickening screech of Bill’s cuestick slicing off the edge of the cueball in a horrible miscue was simultaneous with the booming voice of a tall, fedoraed man entering the front door, momentarily flooding the front part of the poolroom with sunlight. The cueball spun dizzily across the table towards the far corner pocket, clipped the pocket’s edge and bounced about two feet up in the air before caroming off the edge of the rail right at the bottle. The cueball had so much spin on it that it curved just before hitting the bottle dead on and instead glanced off the side of the neck. The ball’s english started the bottle spinning, the $20 bills acting like a green and black propeller, and the bottle drunkenly teetered down the table alongside the rail and with an agonizingly slow final spin, dropped topfirst into the side pocket, the bills still firmly perched on the bottle’s bottom.
Meanwhile, the cueball kissed the nine and the nineball slowly rolled into the corner pocket where it fell with a PLOP! just as the bell stopped ringing.
There was a hush in the poolroom. No one had ever seen such a thing happen. The bottle didn’t tip over. But it was in the pocket. The bills were still on the bottle. The nineball was made.
“Bill, goddoggit, what are you wastin’ time in here playin’ pool for? I told you yesterday we needed to pick up Gunter at noon and it’s already past noon.” The newcomer didn’t notice the murmurings of awe that erupted from the shadows. “Hey, Tom,” he said to the hulking man near the table. “How’s it goin’?”
Bolack stood mutely at the side of the table staring at the nine ball in the pocket below him, his hammy fists clenched tightly around his custom-made ivory-inlaid cue, made from the tusk of a wooly mammoth.
Bill Smith laid his stick down on the table and quickly gathered up the pile of bills on the bottle. “Good game, Tom. Gotta go.” And was out the front door with the man with the fedora right behind him.
The stunned big man squinted in the momentary sunlight and grabbed the bottle out of the side pocket and threw it against the wall. “Goddam you, Tucker!” he shouted at the closing front door. “He’d a never made that shot! An’ as for you Smith, I’ll see you at th’ bowlin’ alley tonight! ’N’ somebody’s gonna die!” Then he turned and faced a wizened man in an apron who approached with a triangular device and a big camel-hair brush. “Pete,” he muttered. “Rack ’em.”
Miley Mud and Chemical
The two men stood in the shade of the awning over the front of the Snooker 8 Pool Hall, the bright New Mexico sunlight baking the asphalt of Main Street.
“You parked in back?” Tucker asked and Bill nodded. “Well, leave it there. I’ll bring you back later. Right now we got to get Gunter and take him up to the school.” He headed west and Bill followed him to his 1947 Lincoln parked on Orchard, right off Main. They got in the car.
“Y’know, Tucker, I think you came in at just the right time. I don’t think I would have wanted to plead my case on that last shot with Bolack and his cronies—not with all those cuesticks on the wall.”
“Yeah, but what the hell are you doin’ shootin’ pool in the morning? I never thought of you as a ‘morning person’.”
“Morning? Hell, we’ve been playing since 10 o’clock last night. Pete blacked out the windows at midnight. I was behind until that last game. Wasn’t that a pip?”
“Right. Cheerio. Glad I could help.” Tucker had taken the alley behind the Snooker 8, noticing Bill’s Oldsmobile parked in an empty lot, then turned right on Wall and left on Main heading east past the Continental Diner. It was sort of a landmark in town because it was an old windowed railroad passenger car converted into a short-order greasy spoon. It was also a block away from the jail so it was a favorite hangout for Farmington’s finest.
“Technically, Bill, you’re in charge of this whole fiasco. I know I suggested it first, but as PR guy you’re in charge. Do you remember what the deal is?”
“A’course I remember! It’s something about Gunter getting’ to brainwash a bunch of schoolkids into becoming oil guzzlers like their daddies—”
Tucker snickered. “You’re closer than you think. What it is is Gunter has volunteered to speak at St. Thomas Catholic School about his audience with the pope back before the war. Apparently he met the ol’ boy and likes to tell people about it.”
“With Pope Pius XII himself, eh? I didn’t know ol’ Gunter was even in that part of the world back then. I thought we hired him out of Bolivia.”
“We did, and he’s been one of the best engineers we have. I guess he came from Europe before that. Anyway, let’s get Gunter and drop him by the school. You can wait in the car if you want—and get some sleep—while he’s talkin’. I’m going in to talk to Tommy, who says he has somethin’ to tell me.”
Tommy was Tucker’s 8-year-old son who was in the third grade at St. Thomas School.
The Lincoln took the curve at the end of Main Street and pulled into the parking lot of a two-story, tan building with a sign saying, MILEY MUD AND CHEMICAL COMPANY. Surrounding the back of the building was a row of storage buildings, like a lumberyard, filled with bags of dried chemical mud for oil well drilling.
The two men got out of the car and entered the front doors of the building. They were immediately met by two men, one a suave man with a trim black mustache and the other a short, older man with sparse hair and a definite stoop.
“You guys are late!” The mustachioed man boomed, a cigar bouncing up and down out of the left side of his mouth.
Tucker started to say something but Bill cut him off. “It’s my fault, Arky. The damn Baroid pumpin’ unit out on the east Bisti blew a sprocket an’ Joe Eaves beat me there. You know what that means—”
“Yeah, I know. Well, Gunter here is itching to tell them young Catholics all about Pope Pompous the Third and he’s la—”
“Pope Pius XII, Arky.” The smaller man interjected.
“Right. Number Twelve. I’ll see you guys later.” Arky strode off to his office in the back of the building.
The three men left the building and got in Tucker’s car.
“So you don’t drive, eh, Gunter?” Bill queried as they headed west back into town.
“No, I nefer learned. I dun’t think I’ve really missed anything.”
“You’re probably right,” said Tucker. “By the way, my son Tom will be one of the students you’ll be talking to. I’m sure you have an interesting story to tell, Gunter.”
“Oh ja, I’ll nefer forget the day I met the pope. He vas magnificent. Dere were lots of important people dere mit us. Dis vas 1940, before the United Shtates entered the var.”
“Y’know, I’m kind of a nut on hist’ry,” Bill spouted from the back seat. “What city was that? Berlin?”
“Nein, it vas Rome, at the Basilica.”
Tucker turned right onto Wall and made a left on Arrington. He asked, “So, Gunter, your wife and son are in Texas. Midland, right?”
“Nein, Odessa. Dey’ll be back dis weekent.”
That ended the conversation as they passed by the Farmington Public library, where Tucker knew Tommy spent much of his time, and turned right just past the baseball field onto Allen Street. They turned into the parking lot at St. Thomas School and Sacred Heart Church.
The church was next to the street and was almost as large as the school to the east of it. A third large brick building, the priests’ house, was just to the north. The school looked like an old-fashioned red schoolhouse should, made of red brick, three stories high with a bell tower to the front—which faced south.
There were dozens of schoolchildren milling around the dirt area, playing marbles, jumping rope, and swinging on a tall swing set near a garage. A few nuns were scattered throughout the crowd of munchkins, dressed in black habits from head to foot, with white cowls surrounding their faces. To Tucker, they resembled oil derricks in a landscape of oscillating pumping units.
It was lunchtime at St. Thomas School.
A Catholic Death
“I think I’ll take you up on that offer to let me sleep in the car,” Bill Smith said as the other two men got out of the car. He sprawled across the back seat and disappeared from sight. Tucker and Gunter walked to the front of the school building and ascended the dozen steps to the double doors. They entered and found themselves in a hallway, with hardwood floors and walls painted a dark beige. Each of the doors in the lengthy hall had dark wooden jambs and there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere.
Tucker said, “I’m not sure where Sister Edwina’s office is. She’s the head nun here, Gunter. All I know is that Tommy is in Sister Gertrude’s room on this floor. I guess we should go there.”
“Ja. Okay mit me.”
Tucker led the way to a room down the hall. It was open and they entered.
“Mr. Tucker,” a rotund nun of indeterminate age greeted them. “Thank you for bringing Mr. Hedelin. I am so looking forward to your talk.”
Gunter muttered hello and Tucker added, “It’s our pleasure, Sister. . .”
“Gertude Mary, Mr. Tucker. I have the pleasure of teaching your son Tommy this year. He should be coming in from lunch soon.” Then, to Gunter, “The room where you’ll give your talk is the meeting room downstairs in the basement. I’ll show you to the room if you don’t mind. The kids will be in from lunch anytime now.”
Gunter nodded his assent and Tucker asked, “May I speak to Tommy for a bit?”
“Of course. I’ll send him up to this room.” She and Gunter left the room and headed to the stairway.
Tucker looked around the small classroom. The desks were old and wooden and were the kind that attached to the chairs in front of them. There was an inkwell in the upper right corner of each desk and a book storage compartment under the desk lid. In the back of the room was a long walk-in closet. At the front of the room was a blackboard and there were windows to the outside on two walls. A couple of iron radiators stood under the windows.
He was starting to look through one of the desks at the books when a boy with a thicket of badly-shorn brown hair, with a big cowlick in front walked through the door.
“Tucker!” The boy said as Tucker greeted him back.
“Hey, Tee-Tom. So this is where you spend your days? It looks pretty good. How are the nuns?”
“They’re okay. Sister Edwina just made me the bell-ringer for this week. I just got through ringing it. Ya wanna see?”
Tucker assented and followed his son out the door into the hallway towards the front of the building. There, off to one side of the main doors was what looked like a small closet with a closed door. Tommy opened the door and there was a bellrope dangling down with a knot in it about four feet off the floor. The rope extended up through a six-inch hole in the ceiling, about twelve feet up.
“Everyday at noon I get to come here and ring the Angelus. It’s great. I can’t show you now but when I ring the bell if I hold on to the rope just above the knot, when the bell swings one way it lifts me up to the ceiling. Sister says not to do it but I do anyway.”
Tucker looked at his son proudly. “So that’s the, what did you call it, the—”
“Angelus. It’s some Catholic thing. It’s supposed to be rung every morning, noon and night, but Sister says the people who live around here wouldn’t like all that ringing all the time so we only ring it at noon and six in the evening.”
“So you’ll be coming back to school every evening at six?”
“Yeah. It’s only for a week. And it’s fun!”
The boy was obviously excited by his new job.
“To do the Angelus you gotta ring it three times, then wait about fifteen seconds and ring it three times again. Then wait another fifteen seconds and ring it three more times. Then, after fifteen seconds you ring it thirty-three times. I think it’s for the number of years Jesus lived. Sometimes it’s hard to get it to stop after the third time. If I pull too hard on the third ring, then I try to stop it, it jerks me up and rings again. Sister doesn’t like that.”
“I don’t imagine she would,” Tucker mused, having had a little experience with the vagaries of Catholic ritual from his marriage to Maxine.
The two talked a bit more about life at St. Thomas then Tommy said Sister wanted him to go downstairs to hear the talk by Gunter. Tucker said, “If you get a chance to talk to Mr. Hedelin, tell him I’ll be out at the car,” and rubbed Tommy’s cowlick as the boy ran out the door.
He walked down the hall to the rear of the building and left through the back door. He had just made it to the car when a black-habited nun ran down the stairs of the school and over to him.
“Mr. Tucker! Mr. Tucker! Come quick! There’s something wrong with Mr. Hedelin!”
Bill Smith sat up in the back seat and opened the door. “C’mon, Bill,” Tucker yelled, and ran after the nun who was scooting back to the school. Bill followed shakily.
They ran around the building and down three steps to the “basement” which was actually a bottom floor, half below ground level. They turned right into the first room and Tucker saw a crowd of kids at the front of the room. He pushed past them and saw Gunter lying on his back, a small nun huddled over him.
“Get back! Get back!” The nun hissed and the children, who were already five feet away, drew back more. It took Tucker a few seconds to navigate through the crowd of kids to Gunter’s side and saw that he did not seem to be breathing well—and had actually turned a dark shade of blue. His eyes were closed and he wasn’t moving.
“Somebody call an ambulance!” Tucker shouted and knelt down next to Gunter. He saw that the nun was a particularly wizened crone of 50 or 60. She looked at him and said, “He was just starting his talk and then keeled over. I tried to help him but. . .”
Tucker noticed that the hand she had placed on Gunter’s chest was missing a couple of fingers, one completely and the other at the second joint.
Bill Smith entered the room out of breath and Tucker walked over and met him by the door. He told him to make sure an ambulance was on its way and then returned to the nun. “I’m sure you did what you could, Sister, uh. . .”
“Edwina,” the nun answered in a low, croaky voice in an odd, European accent.
“Yes, Sister Edwina. You’re the, uh, head nun around here.”
“The mother superior, yes.”
Gunter was no longer moving at all and didn’t seem to be breathing. Tucker wasn’t sure what to do so they remained at the prostrate man’s side until an ambulance’s siren was heard. A few moments later a couple of medical men entered and attended to Gunter. They looked at Tucker and Sister Edwina and shook their heads solemnly. He was not going to make it.
The kids were assembled outside and the body taken away by the medics. Tucker turned to Sister Edwina. “I’m sorry about all this Sister. I’m sure you did all you could.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tucker. I’m just sorry that Tommy had to see it.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll handle it fine, but thank you anyway. Uh, did Gunter say anything? I assume it was a heart attack or something like that.”
One of the other nuns who was still in the room piped up, “Yes he did. He said something about not seeing any gerbils—”
“That’ll be enough, Sister,” Sister Edwina cut in. “You can go back to your classes now.” The other nuns left leaving Tucker and Sister Edwina alone in the room.
“Gerbils?” Tucker queried.
Sister Edwina’s craggy face twisted into a dark mask. “Oh yes, I know what that’s all about. He did say, I believe, ‘I do not see gerbils,’. You see, before he began speaking I had told him about the wonderful gerbil trail we have upstairs, and asked him if he’d like to see it before he left. I guess the stroke, or whatever, addled his brain and made him say that.”
“I see,” said Tucker and sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll have to call Odessa and tell his—”
Sister Edwina choked, quickly raising her three-fingered hand to her mouth and swallowing hard. Her eyes stared at Tucker coldly. “Excuse me Mr. Tucker, do go on.”
“His wife and son, Gunnar, are in Odessa Texas. I’ll call them. I’ll be going to the hospital now. I’m sorry you had to endure—”
She cut him off. “My prayers will concern Mr. Hedelin and you, you can be sure, Mr. Tucker.” The shriveled face seemed both wary and relieved. “By the way, would you tell your son Michael that he often figures in my prayers?”
“I will, Sister. In fact I’m meeting him soon to take him to work at the Navajo Bowl. He’s a pinboy there.”
“I always knew his cleverness would come in handy.”
Tucker smiled confusedly and said goodbye as he left the building. Bill was waiting for him by the car.
As they got in, Bill said, “Best engineer Miley ever had. That’s too bad. He makes it all the way through the war and has it all come to an end in a crummy New Mexican schoolhouse.”
“Yeah,” Tucker said, “I bet he still had a few stories to tell, too. Well, let’s go tell Arky. I gotta remember to go pick up Mike and take him to work at the bowling alley. I’ll take you to your car first. You might want to get some work done today.”
“I don’t really feel like working after all this, Tucker. But I guess I should put in some hours. Something to take my mind off everything. Man, I bet ol’ Gunter knew a lot about the war. Why didn’t I talk to him more?”
The San Juan Hospital
Tucker dropped Bill off at his car behind the Snooker 8 and drove out Main almost all the way to the end of town. He passed the A&W Root Beer stand, the Navajo Bowl and the El Vasito then took a left. Four blocks later, almost to the river, he came to a three-story wooden building standing all by itself, needing paint and maintenance. The sign read SAN JUAN HOSPITAL. Tucker turned into the parking lot that was half-full with older cars and pickups.
He entered through a double-wide door and approached the main desk. A shapely nurse, redhead, sat at the desk. A dozen sick people sat in chairs around the room.
“Maybe a half hour ago a man was bought in here. I think he had had a heart attack.” Tucker was distracted by the nurse’s highly symmetrical blouse.
“You must mean Mr. Hedelin.” A look of sympathy filled her face. “Are you a relative?”
“No, a co-worker. I was with him, sort of, when he had the attack. The medics said he was gone.”
“Yes, I’m afraid he was dead when he arrived here. I’m so sorry, Mr. . . .”
“Tucker, just Tucker. Uh, was there anything—was everything okay? Other than him dying, of course?” Tucker felt a little tongue-tied from the attention the nurse was giving him.
“Well there was some kind of heated discussion among the doctors and the pathologist but of course they don’t tell me anything. . . oh, I tell you what. Here are his x-rays. Dr. Fine left them for Dr. Howard. Shall we look at them?” She said it with a conspiratorial air that made Tucker’s pants lurch.
“Why not?”
She slid a couple of x-rays out of the brown sleeve and placed them on the table. Tucker couldn’t see anything so he picked one up and held it to the light in the ceiling. It was of a man’s torso. The x-ray looked normal to Tucker except for something in the middle of the man’s chest. Tucker peered more closely and saw that it was a white cross.
“What’s that, Nurse, uh . . .”
“Beavers, Mr. Tucker, just Beavers.”
“That’s just Tucker, not ‘Mr.’ Tucker.”
They paused for a couple of beats and then Nurse Beavers took the x-ray from Tucker and looked up at it. “Oh, I think you see that all the time. The X-ray techs just haven’t completely undressed him yet and he’s wearing a crucifix. It must be on a leather string or something.”
“Hm. I guess so. I just never knew Gunter as much of a Christian. He was a mud engineer.”
Tucker suddenly looked at his watch and said, “Thank you very much, Beavers, for everything. I may have to, uh, query you a bit more—”
“I’m the only Beavers in the book, Tucker.”
The Navajo Bowl
Tucker had about an hour before he was to pick up Mike so he drove slowly, mulling over all of the things that happened that day. He took Broadway all the way to mid-town then got on Main. Something felt wrong to him. Something just didn’t add up. But he got nowhere and gave up. He arrived at Miley Mud and Chemical Company around 3:15.
After telling Arky and Neta Miley about the happenings at the Catholic School, Tucker spent an hour with them talking about funeral arrangements, wills, heart problems in general and other depressing things and then left for the day, driving in a semi-daze to his house on Wall Street. He honked the horn and a tall, slim dark-haired boy of fourteen came out of the house and got in the car.
“Hi, Tucker,” the boy said and pushed his black horned-rim glasses up on his nose.
“Mike,” Tucker said, “You’re getting taller every day. How’s the new job?”
Michael Tucker was a freshman at Farmington High School, having been graduated from St. Thomas School the year before. He had just walked home from the school, about three blocks to the east just past Dustin.
“I really like it. Mike Kelloff’s dad says it’s one of the most dangerous jobs in town but I’m pretty careful. I figure in about a year I’ll have enough saved for a car.”
“Oh I wouldn’t worry about a car just yet. You don’t get your license till next year and besides, I think that Jerry Miley will be getting a new car around that time. What do you think about his old Merc?”
The boy beamed. “Jerry Miley’s Mercury! That would be great! Can you imagine what the guys would think seeing me driving around town in that?”
“Not to mention the girls,” Tucker grinned.
Michael was silent for a couple of seconds and said, “Hey, I don’t start work for another half hour. How about we get a root beer?”
Tucker had driven down Wall to Apache and turned right, then due west into the afternoon sun for a half dozen blocks before turning left and heading down to West Main Street. Tucker pulled into the parking lot of the A&W Root Beer stand right across Main from the Navajo Bowl.
The two had root beers, delivered to the car by a young carhop Michael knew. Tucker had a nickel root beer in a frosted glass and Mike ordered the dime glass, twice as tall.
As they drank, Tucker told Michael about the day’s events. The boy was shocked and dismayed. “I can’t believe Mr. Hedelin is gone. Gunnar is my best friend.”
Tucker knew that Michael spent a lot of time with Gunter’s 15-year-old son and commiserated with him. “Yeah, he was one of the best. And it was so sudden. I wasn’t there but they said he mumbled something about not seeing any gerbils. Apparently Sister Edwina had offered to show him some gerbils.”
“Really? That’s odd,” Michael said. “There’s no gerbils at St. Thomas.”
“There isn’t?” Tucker was startled.
“Well, there was—last year. In fact I was the one who designed the trails for them. But Father Gregory and Father Conran would get so nervous and silly every time they saw them that at the end of last year Sister Edwina made me tear it down. She sold the whole thing, trail boxes, tubes, gerbils—everything—to little Tommy Bolack.”
“That’s funny all right. I wonder why she said that?” Tucker stared out the window and looked thoughtful.
Michael said, “I wouldn’t put anything past Sister Edwina. You don’t know how happy I was to get out of that place. She doesn’t trust me and I don’t trust her—and she knows it. Well, I gotta go to work. Hey, do you want to see the place? I bet you’ve never seen the back of a bowling alley before.”
Tucker had worked as a pinboy in Tulia Texas when he was Mike’s age but he shook his head and said, “Let’s see it.”
He started the car and they drove across Main Street and parked directly behind the brightly lit building with the big painted sign that read, NAVAJO BOWL.
“You’ve only been working here a week and they give you a key?” Tucker asked.
“No, they leave the back door open all the time because that’s where the pinboys go in and out. There’s always at least four pinboys for the 12 lanes.”
The two entered through a big metal door that was partially hidden by a bushy tree. They could hear the noise of hurtling pins from outside the building but once they were inside the din was deafening.
The room was long, extending all the way across the building and narrow, about ten feet from the wall to the series of twelve pits, one for each of the lanes. There were a few folding chairs along the back wall but no one was sitting in any of them, the four boys of around Mike’s age too busy to sit. The alley was already packed for the night although it was only 5 p.m.
With the regularity of ocean waves, the balls came whizzing down the lanes, their sound growing in volume and pitch, ending with a crash of wood against wood. The pins propellered into the pit at all angles, sometimes threatening to fly out of the pit back towards the boys who stood a respectful distance back from it. There was a barrier between each pit that prevented a pin flying into or behind an adjacent lane but the pinboys were always wary when standing behind a pit with a ball coming down that lane.
So they were always on the move. After a roll and once the pins had settled down the pinboy jumped in the pit and picked them up, dropping them in a ten-slot rack suspended above the end of the lane. If a pin had bounced out on the lane or in the gutter, he retrieved it. This was the only time the bowlers saw the pinboy. Most of the time he was a shadowy figure moving around behind the end of the lane. The pinboys seemed to know exactly when to pick up the ball and lift it to the ball return ramp, where it whooshed out of sight behind a billowing curtain. After the second roll and with the rack filled, the pinboy pulled a lanyard and the rack was lowered to the lane. Another pull and the rack ascended, leaving the ten pins wobbling, ready for the next frame.
There was a complex rhythm to the pinboys’ dance that Tucker marveled at. The action behind the pins was much more interesting than the action in front of the pins, he thought.
“I think tonight I’m slated to work the first three lanes, right here at this end.” Mike’s almost shouted comment broke into Tucker’s thoughts.
“I had forgotten how dangerous a bowling alley is,” Tucker yelled back. “You be careful, okay?” He noticed there were two phones on the wall. “You can use those phones in all this racket?”
Mike laughed. “It’s usually not this loud. And the phone’s are extra loud. They need to call us sometimes from the front.”
“Can I make a call from one of them?”
“Sure. As long as one of them is free for incoming calls, it’s okay.”
Tucker went to the first phone and picked up the receiver. The dial tone was pretty loud.
He dialed the number at home on Wall Street. Tommy answered.
“Tommy. Good! I was hoping you were home. I need to know a few more details about what happened today. Did you actually see Mr. Hedelin when he had his heart attack?
Tommy answered, “Yeah, I saw everything. Are you in a bowling alley or something?”
“Yes I am. Now tell me exactly what you saw, okay?”
“Well, after I left you I went down to the meeting room and got up pretty close to Mr. Hedelin. He was just starting to talk about the pope. Then, I think Sister Edwina came in and stood at the back of the room. A minute later I heard Mr. Hedelin choke and he sort of grabbed his chest and fell down. I was right there.”
“What did he say?”
“He was mumbling something about not seeing any gerbils. Not exactly that but—you know—his accent. It was hard to tell what he was saying. It sounded like, ‘I do not see gerbils.’ Or something like ‘gerbils’. Then Sister Edwina rushed up and told everyone to move back. We did and she knelt over him pushing on his chest and trying to revive him or something. He kept mumbling about the gerbils and she kept shushing him and telling him to relax. Whenever any of us got close she’d yell at us to get away and give him room to breathe.”
“Then what?”
“Then you came running in. Then they made all of us kids leave.”
“Okay, Tommy, that’s very good. That’s just what I needed to know. Sister Edwina came in and then Mr. Hedelin had his attack.”
“What’s wrong, Tucker?”
“Nothing I can’t handle, Tee-Tom. You just stay at home with your mother and brothers and I’ll see you later.” He hung up.
Then he dialed Bill Smith’s number at Miley Mud and no one answered. So he dialed Neta’s number at the office and she picked up on the second ring.
Tucker shouted, “Neta, can you tell me where Bill Smith is? I just called his line—”
“I think he drove out towards Aztec. There’s some big real estate thing brewing out there. You sound like you’re in a bowling alley.”
“Actually, I am. Hmm. So there’s no way to get a hold of him—?”
“Oh yes there is. I told him to take the company car with that new-fangled mobile telephone. Just dial DAvis 0-0023. But have you heard about Gunter?”
“Well, I was out to the hospital and heard that he died before he even reached the hosp—”
“No,” Neta interrupted. “I mean did you hear about the crucifix? The hospital called here right after you left.”
“Well, I saw that he was wearing a crucifix. That was funny, I never knew—”
“Wearing? He wasn’t wearing the crucifix, Tucker. The damn crucifix was inside his throat. That’s what killed him. Not the heart attack.”
“What?” Tucker was stunned. This was it. The proof that there was something mortally wrong with Gunter’s death. Tucker didn’t have all of the pieces of the puzzle filled in but he at least had the straight edges. He shouted into the phone, “I gotta go, Neta. I’ll call you after I talk to Bill. I need his expertise right now.”
He hung up and saw that Mike had already begun his work as pinboy for the first three lanes. Tucker walked over to his son who was in the pit for lane 2. He leaned down and said, “Mike, you be very careful. Stay here and I’ll pick you up at midnight. Don’t leave, okay, until I come for you.”
Tucker walked quickly to the phone and dialed DAvis 0-0023. Three rings and a metallic voice answered, “Bill Smith here, cheerio!”
“Bill,” Tucker yelled. “We gotta talk! This is big. Where the hell are you?”
“Damn, you sound like you’re in a bowling alley or something. What’s all that—”
“I am at a bowling alley, gotdoggit. Where are you?” Tucker could hardly hear Bill’s voice.
“I’m about six miles out of town on the Aztec highway. Can you believe that some local bozos are thinkin’ about buildin’ a goddam golf course out here in the stinkin’ desert? You ever heard of anything so ignernt?”
Tucker, who was a scratch golfer, hesitated for an instant. “Why, that’s not a ba—Bill, I got to talk to you. Now! I’m out at the Navajo Bowl. Let’s meet halfway. Meet me at the Continental.”
“Good idea. I’m starvin’.”
“Just get there. After I tell you what I think, you may not feel like eating anything. Hurry!”
Tucker slammed the phone down, waved to his son who was in pit three, and left through the metal door.
The Continental Diner
Tucker made it across town to the Continental Diner in a little under three minutes. It was five-twenty. He pulled into a spot behind a cop car halfway down the block west of the diner and quickly hotfooted it to the diner entrance.
The place was about half full, with a contingent of cops seated at the stools to the right of the door, a few sport-coated gents among them, and a row of empty stools to the left. A telephone booth was on the west wall. Tucker took a stool on the far left and muddled over in his mind what he was going to tell Bill. He ordered a cup of coffee he knew he wouldn’t drink.
One of the policemen, a sheriff, sauntered over and said to Tucker, “Sorry about the noise, bub, there’s a convention in town.”
“Oh yeah?” Tucker looked up. “What kind a convention?” Tucker knew the sheriff from the occasional newspaper stories about him. Dan Sullivan. An overweight blowhard who liked to see his name in the paper.
“The Federal Bureau of Narcotics. These guys in the suits over here are narcotics experts. Man, have they got some stories to tell.”
“I’ll bet. Well you guys aren’t botherin’ me. I’m just waiting for a friend—who’s driving up right now.” Tucker waved through the window at Bill Smith who had parked just to the east of the diner and was approaching the front door.
“Well, it’s always good to have a friend, idn’t it?”
Sullivan walked back to the throng of cops and suits then stepped into the telephone booth and closed the door. Bill sat on a stool next to Tucker. “What’re all the narcs doin’ in here?” Bill asked under his breath.
Tucker said, “Convention. Y’know, we may need some cooperation from the cops if we’re ever going to make the person who killed Gunter pay.”
Bill was stunned. “Killed? I thought he died of a heart attack?”
“Let me tell you what happened. When they got him to the hospital they found a crucifix stuck in his esophagus.”
“His esophagus? Hold it. He’s a Catholic, right. Maybe it was an accident? Or maybe he swallowed it on purpose?”
“Well I guess you can’t rule those out, but I’m thinking Sister Edwina did it. Here’s why. Numero uno, she lied to me. She told me that she had offered to show Gunter the gerbil trail upstairs and Michael assures me that the trail was taken down last year. Numero dos, she was the one who had the best access to him. Hell, maybe the only real access. When he started choking she made everybody else get back. I can still see her three-fingered hand on his chest. Numero tres, it’s a damn crucifix. Who else but a nun would have a crucifix handy?”
“It’s a Cath’lic school, Tucker. Everybody and his horse has a crucifix handy.”
“Hmm. Maybe you’re right.”
“Wait a minute. Three fingers?”
“Three—count ’em—three.”
“I wonder how the hell a nun loses two fingers?” Bill muttered.
Tucker continued, “But one thing that bothers me is why. Why would an old nun like Sister Edwina want to kill a guy like Gunter? Tommy said he started choking right after she came into the room. According to her she had met him a little earlier, when she told him about the gerbils. But maybe she hadn’t. Maybe she lied about the gerbils just to explain what he was mumbling?”
“I follow you. She didn’t want you thinking it was important what he was sayin’ so she made up a story. What was it again?”
“ ‘I do not see gerbils.’ Or something like ‘gerbils’.”
Bill stared at Tucker for a second then said, “Y’know, there’s something about the way you say—”
But Tucker cut him off. “Another thing was funny. I just remembered. When I was talking to Sister Edwina and mentioned that Gunter’s wife and kid were in Texas, she about choked. She covered it up but she definitely was shook by something about them being in Texas.”
“Texas, eh,” Bill said, “are you sure it was Texas she was shook about?”
“Well it might have been Midland or Odessa I said. I can’t remember—”
“Odessa! I thought so!” Bill almost shouted and Sheriff Sullivan and a few narcs looked over at the two men. The sheriff said something to the crowd of policemen and left the diner.
Bill lowered his voice. “Tucker, I think I know half of why Edwina killed Gunter.”
Tommy’s Kampf
Tommy’s other brothers, Bobby and Johnny, were out playing baseball in the back yard of the Tucker’s Wall Street home and Tommy was sitting in a cushiony chair in the living room, immersed in The Secret of the Lost Tunnel, #20 in the Hardy Boys series. Their mother, Maxine, was playing bridge at the McGarry’s.
The book was Tommy’s first Hardy Boys book. Michael had about a dozen of them on his bookshelf and Tommy had always been fascinated by the colorful dust jackets. He had been tempted to read one before but Maxine had suggested he read Now We Are Six by A. A. Milne. Tommy tried the Milne book but the poetry and difficult, obscure words discouraged him and he decided to jump into the Hardy Boys book, even if he wasn’t grown up enough for it yet. The Secret of the Lost Tunnel had the best title and before he knew it he was traveling to the American “South” with Frank and Joe in search of lost confederate gold.
He finished a chapter and looked up at the clock to see that it was four forty-five. He still had plenty of time before he had to walk to school and ring the six o’clock Angelus. But he was tired of sitting here in the house and decided to take his book with him and go on down to the school. He could sit on a bench in the shade on the east side of the building where he often sat while waiting for Mass.
Tommy slammed the door as he left and walked at a fast pace down Wall to Apache. He turned west and continued up the hill to Orchard. Just past the house on the corner he cut across an empty lot to a tall wooden fence that extended across the four-foot wide ditch that ran along the north side of the school property. The ditch was just wide enough that boys of Tommy’s size risked falling in every time they jumped it. Sometimes there was a log across the ditch farther up Apache but the fence was always the easiest way to get across. It had a horizontal two-by-four you could step across on while holding onto another horizontal two-by-four about chest level.
Tommy maneuvered his way across the fence and walked past the chicken coops and garage that made up the northeast corner of the school property. There was no one in sight as he sat on the bench, which had its back against the east wall of the schoolhouse, right below an open window.
He had been reading for about a half hour when he heard a phone ring through the window of the room just above him. He heard Sister Edwina’s raspy voice.
“Oh, it’s you. Speak to me.”
A pause, then, “You found him? Goot! At the Continental Diner? Isn’t that where the police hang out with their donuts and coffee?”
There was another short pause and Sister Edwina cackled, “Narcotics convention? Only in America could they have such a thing. What about the other one, the one they call Bill?”
Another short pause and, “Very goot. I recommend that you exit the premises within five minutes. When I finish with Tucker and Bill I’ll take care of his oldest spawn. I’ve been informed by the fedoraed one himself that he’s working as a pinboy at the Navajo Bowl.” She laughed darkly and hung up.
Tommy was shocked. What was Sister Edwina doing? What did she mean by “finish” and “take care of”?
He carefully placed his book down and stood up and stepped up on the bench. He quietly and slowly peered over the edge of the window into the room. The light was off and the east side of the building was in shade but there was enough light for him to see a black-habited form moving about on the far side of the room. He raised himself up an inch and saw her open a bureau drawer and pull out a large gun. Then she reached into a desk drawer and got a set of keys. She looked towards the window and Tommy ducked his head below the window.
Did she see him? A chill came over him as he heard footsteps walking rapidly towards the window. He immediately jumped off the bench and crawled under it. He was curled beneath it, scrunched against the wall, thinking how badly he had to urinate, when he heard her raise the window a bit more and hiss, “Iss anyone there?”
Tommy could feel her eyes sweeping the whole east side of the school property then boring down through the bench seat. He counted a vein near his bladder thumping—thirty—forty—fifty times.
Then he heard her slam the window shut—and he breathed for the first time in over a minute. He stayed where he was until he heard the door on the north side of the school open and a pair of hob-nailed nun’s boots beat a rapid tattoo down the steps and head towards the garage. A half minute later a car started, backed up and drove off.
Tommy crawled out from under the bench and shook the dirt off his clothes. He thought, “I gotta warn Tucker—and Michael. Maybe I can call the Continental Diner and the bowling alley. But I don’t know their numbers and I don’t have much time. Sister Edwina’ll be down there any minute.”
Then it hit him. The Angelus!
He ran around the southeast corner of the school and up the steps to the south door. It was open, as it always was. He ran in and threw open the door to the bellrope room and rang the bell four times. He waited about five seconds and rang it four more times. He waited another five seconds then rang it four more times. He had been dragged up to the twelve-foot ceiling of the room with every other ring.
Then he started ringing the bell for all he was worth.
The Continental Massacre
“You know half of why she killed him? What do you mean?”
Tucker stared at Bill, who was fidgeting next to him at the counter.
“You won’t believe this, Tucker. She killed Gunter because he recognized her. From where? The audience with the pope. Gunter said there was a lot of important people there and Edwina was one of ’em.”
“So they knew each other back then in 1940?”
“Maybe. But not necessarily. I’m thinkin’ that the reason she killed Gunter is to keep anyone from knowin’ she was there. Not because of who knew her, but because of who she is. Or was.”
Tucker was getting frustrated. “For Pete’s sake, Bill, tell me what you’ve figured out.”
“Okay, I will. Y’see—”
Just then a bell to the north tolled. Four times.
The look on Tucker’s face kept Bill from continuing with his story. Then the bells tolled four more times. Tucker quickly looked at his watch and saw that it was five thirty. The Angelus was not supposed to be rung until six.
Bill said, “What is it, Tucker? Do those bells mean anything?”
“Something’s wrong, Bill. I think Tommy is trying to tell me something.”
The bells tolled four more times. Tucker looked around and saw the cops and narcotics agents all sitting in a row at the counter.
Tucker said under his breath. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t think we’re safe. C’mon.”
The bells began ringing as if they would never stop.
Tucker got up and headed for the door. Bill followed. Just then three agents wearing ill-fitting plaid suits got up to leave. And at the same time a large black Dodge pulled up and stopped in front of the diner next to the curb—facing the wrong way, west—with a black-habited, white-cowled nun barely visible behind the wheel. Tucker and Bill saw her and instinctively ducked back to the counter. The three suits opened the door just as the nun propped a large gun on the door through the open window of the car and began firing.
The sound of the shots drowned out the tolling of the bell. The bullets ripped through the bodies of the narcs and they flew back into the diner as the astonished cops jumped to their feet. The three wounded men fell to the floor, dragging a few cops with them.
Tucker and Bill stared into the eyes of the nun behind the gun as the whole diner erupted in confusion. They could see the indecision on her face as she strained to see who she had shot. Then she pulled the gun back into the car and screeched out into Main Street, heading west.
“A luger. I thought so,” Bill muttered.
“Let’s go,” Tucker spat, “she’s headed toward the bowling alley!”
Bowling For Death
Tucker and Bill were the first ones out the door of the Continental Diner, which was a madhouse of shouting cops and bleeding narcs. They ran to Tucker’s car and were soon peeling out, making a U-turn on Main and heading west to the Navajo Bowl.
“Tell me what you’re thinkin’, Bill,” Tucker seethed as they accelerated through the one red light at Allen.
“Well,” the Okie said nervously as they clipped a pickup full of Navajos in front of the Avery Hotel. “It’s a bunch of things together—and what Gunter said as he was dyin’.”
“Gerbils?” Tucker shouted.
“Not gerbils, no. That’s just what everybody heard. But the kicker was what you said about Edwina chokin’ when you said ‘Odessa’.”
“So what about Odessa?”
“Well, I’m kinda a nut about WW Two and the Nazis and ‘Odessa’ is the name for an organization that helped high-rankin’ Nazis escape to South America after the war. Not many people know about it.”
“So Gunter was a Nazi? I can’t believe that!”
“Not Gunter. Edwina was a Nazi and Gunter recognized her. And either he knew her or she was somebody famous enough for him to recognize. Remember he said there were a lot of important people there. This was before the war and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the German High Command wasn’t there to have an audience with the pope. There are rumors Pius XII was a good friend to the Nazis before, during and after the war. After all, the damn Cath’lics hated the Jews almost as much as the Nazis.”
The car was approaching the Navajo Bowl and Tucker screeched to a stop behind the building next to the black Dodge.
Bill grabbed Tucker’s arm as he opened his door. “But hold it, Tucker. You can’t go barging in there. He’s got a gun.”
“I don’t care, Bill. Mike’s in ther—what do you mean ‘he’?”
“I’m telling you. I recognized him from the hundreds of photos I’ve seen of his ugly face. If only I had seen Sister Edwina at the school earlier. That’s not anybody named Edwina—that’s Josef Goebbels!”
“Josef Goebbels?” Tucker exploded. “The Nazi propaganda minister?” A look of comprehension crept over his strong-jawed face. “That means that what Gunter was really was sayin’ was—”
“Nazi Goebbels. Not ‘not see gerbils’. It’s the same, except for th’ hard G.”
“But isn’t he supposed to be dead?”
“Oh yeah. He and his wife and six kids committed suicide as soon as Hitler died in April ’45. Their bodies were burned just outside the bunker. At least that’s what Trevor-Roper figured out.”
Bill was talking to the back of Tucker as the fedoraed man approached the metal door of the bowling alley. “We gotta go in, Bill,” Tucker said over his shoulder. “I think she’s—uh—he’s gunning for Mike.”
Tucker opened the door slowly and peered in. Bill heard a sigh of relief from him as he entered the dark room. Bill followed and they ran to Michael, who was standing in the near pit with a bowling pin in his hand.
“Mike, are you—”
A voice from the shadows against the back wall stopped them. “Dumpkopfs! Now I have all three of you togesser. So easy to kill.”
Josef Goebbels, dressed in the black habit and white cowl of an Ursuline nun, was backed against the wall, a large luger in his hand. Tucker quickly looked over at the other three pinboys on the other nine lanes but in the din and darkness, they were all obliviously doing their dangerous and noisy jobs.
“We know who you are, Goebbels,” Bill Smith spouted.
“So, you haf figured it oudt.” The wizened ex-Reichminister was lapsing into his former speech patterns. “I vundered when you would. I always sought it vouldt be young Michael who put two undt two togesser.”
Bill licked his lips and asked, “But one thing puzzles me. There was no mention of Goebbels, er, you, ever having three fingers on one hand. How did—”
“Oh dot. I’m afraidt dot Magda undt a couple uff der kinder weren’t too ensoosiastic aboudt my suicide scheme for zem—undt a trip to Argentina for me. Zey bit like crocodiles ven I gafe zem zee cyanide.”
Tucker noticed that Michael was holding the pin tightly, as if he were getting ready to throw it. He hadn’t reset the pins and one of the bowlers was shouting loud enough for them to hear over the noise of the other bowling that was going on.
“Hey, pinboy! Reset the goddam pins!” It was unmistakably the voice of Tom Bolack.
Geobbels laughed and said to Michael, “Ja, go aheadt and let zee loudmouth bowl. Do it right because it’ll be zee last sing you do.”
Mike put the pin in the rack and pulled the lanyard to lower the pins onto the lane. He pulled it again and the rack rose, leaving the ten slightly wobbling pins. He grabbed another pin from the pit and crawled out and stood between Tucker and Bill.
The Nazi nun began moving toward the door. “Vell, it’s been schweet. I’m not in zee habit uff shooting Aryans but zis time I’ll make an exception. So much more fun to shoot Jews undt homozexuals.”
Tucker saw Mike’s knuckles whiten and thought to himself, that’s funny, I never knew Mike was so concerned about Jews.
Goebbels reached the closed metal door and pointed the gun at Tucker. The sound of a rolling ball grew louder and higher-pitched as it approached the pins. The gnarled, three-fingered fist holding the gun tightened. . .
The metal door burst open, slamming into the back of the Nazi nun, knocking him towards the pit. The three hostages stepped aside as Goebbels teetered on the brink of the pit and fired the luger at the hulking figure that lumbered through the door, blowing a large hole in Sheriff Dan Sullivan’s groin. The recoil of the gun toppled the nun backwards into the pit just as the speeding 16-pound ball crashed into the pins sending each of the ten 3.3-pound truncheons rocketing into the pit.
The Nazi’s final scream was drowned out by a bellow from the front of the bowling alley. “Steeee-rike!”
From outside the din of the bowling alley one could faintly hear the sound of a bell ringing the 6 o’clock Angelus.
Epilogue
Twelve Years Later
Bob Berry replaced the Mantovani LP on his turntable with a 45 with an orange label. The silver-coifed man-about-town DJ murmured smoothly, “Let’s have a change of pace now with a song by a local boy name-a Knees Calhoon. You might want to turn your radios down a bit because he gets a little raucous at times. It’s something he calls ‘Angelus of Doom’ and it seems to be about bells and some local citizens from a few years’ back. But don’t worry, right afterwards I’ll get back to some real music with the latest hot platters from Guy Lombardo and the Percy Faith Orchestra right here on KVBC.”
It all began at the Snooker Eight
Bottle pool was the game
And it ended at the Navajo Bowl
In Tom Bolack’s last frame.
Tucker got the ball rollin’
Takin’ Gunter to school
Bill was sacked out in the back seat
Bill Smith was no fool.
But the bells that were ringin’
They were tollin’ for you
Sister Mary Edwina—The Angelus of Doom.
Gunter Hedelin packed it in
Recognized the wrong face
He never made it to the finish line
Of the master race.
Tucker knew there was something wrong
With that lyin’ nun
An’ there ain’t nothin’ more dangerous
Than a nun with a gun.
Photographic Evidence
Only known picture of Sister Edwina (with
unidentified student — perhaps an accomplice?)
Close-up of three-fingered hand
Josef Goebbels, circa 1944
Josef and Magda Goebbels in happier times
