Free Comfort to the Enemy (2010) by Elmore - Carl Webster 03 Leonard

Okmulgee, but there it was on the front stoop every morning. Shemane watched Gladys in her green velvet with the emerald necklace and rings, always her rings, her veined hand reaching for the cigarette in the silver holder resting in a silver ashtray.
    "It's gone out.
    Shemane had on a nifty black jersey this evening with a scoop neck, no jewelry. She said, "Let me have it," flicked a silver lighter to get the joint going again, took a deep draw through the holder and held her breath saying, Mom? Here, take it."
    She had read about the attempt to assassinate Hitler, one of his guys, Goring--no, it was the naval guy, Doenitz saying, "by a clique of mad generals. Jurgen knew about it, he said Hitler was crazy, not the generals, one of them being Field Marshal Rommel, Jurgen's all-time hero. She had read only a couple weeks ago Rommel had died of injuries received last July in France when his car was strafed by a Spitfire and went out of control. Jurgen said, "He takes all that time to die of injuries? He was a war hero, loved by the German people. It's why they couldn't hang him." His voice quiet then saying , "They made him take poison."
    He said it during his last visit, the two of them on the sofa. She put her arm around him and brushed his hair from his forehead and kissed his cheek telling him she was so sorry, kissing and patting him and touching his hair.
    Her mom thought Jurgen was a nice polite boy because he said yes ma'm and no ma'm. Shemane and her mom hardly ever talked about the war. Her mom would see a photo of Franklin Roosevelt in the paper and say Alvin called him a Communist Jew-lover. Gladys had grown up in Tulsa society, was snatched off a country club dance floor by Alvin Morrissey, who married her to get into Maple Ridge and make oil contacts. By the time Shemane was 12 she knew her dad was fooling around; she'd go through his things and find letters from girls, girls' names in his address book and rubbers in his billfold. She told Jurgen she told him just about everything because he liked to listen to her--that her dad had married Gladys because she was ditsy and loved all kinds of cocktails, loved to dance and drive to Hot Springs to gamble.
    Shemane said, "She misses her social life less and less. I'm thankful she knows enough to sedate herself. Mom can feel mellow whenever she wants.
    Shemane was surprised Jurgen had never tried reefer. He liked it, grinning and talking more, becoming less and less German each time he came, telling her how much he liked America and wanted to visit Detroit again after the war. He said you could ride the streetcar from the fairgrounds all the way downtown to the river for seven cents, and take the ferry to Canada for a nickel. He loved to read. He loved scotch whisky. He told Shemane he loved her and maybe he did, though a lot of guys had said they loved her. She told Jurgen she never tried to vamp her customers; she'd be herself, the nice polite girlnextdoor-type, like this was the first time she was ever in bed naked with a guy and a little nervous but still anxious to please. "I'd say. Do you like it when I do this? Very innocent. Like it honey, they loved all my tricks. She told Jurgen about Teddy Ritz, an honest-toGod gangster who'd set her up with dates and take her back to his bed after, because she had been with rich guys, gentlemen, and Teddy would ask what they talked about and if she had learned anything he could use.
    She asked Jurgen what being in North Africa had been like. He said, The best part? Being with Erwin Rommel, feeling his energy. It was exciting to watch him. He thought about North Africa and said, Otherwise it was armor in the desert, all that metal painted the color of sand. Metal you didn't want to touch. And at night you froze to death.
    She could tell he liked the she way she was herself with him in bed, not using any o f h er tricky moves on him and made him wear a rubber. He asked her if it was necessary and she said, "Trust me," Making