Free Up in Honey's Room by Elmore Leonard

knew you were Schutzstaffeln, ready to dispose of your suit, one I see was crudely made from a uniform.”
    Walter stopped. He didn’t mean to sound critical of the suit, made under duress in a prison camp, and said, “Although I must say the suit did serve you. It brought you here undetected?”
    They couldn’t stay in the rooms upstairs. No, on that day in October they entered the butcher shop he knew he would drive them to the farm and have to let them stay, of course, until they decided what they would do next.
    Unless, fate had sent them here—not for Walter to help them . The other way around, for them to help him . Why not?
    He could explain who he was and what he intended to do without giving the whole thing away. Tell them his mysterious connection to Heinrich Himmler and their roles in the history of the German Reich, their destinies. They knew Himmler’s destiny. By now he must have rid Europe of most of its Jews and was the Führer’s logical successor. Walter, meanwhile squinting at his destiny, knew he would not be dealing with the Jewish problem. The press here portrayed Himmler as the most hated man in the world. Even people Walter knew who were vocally anti-Semitic said it would give them an incredible sense of relief if the Jews would go someplace else. There was talk about sending them all to live on the island of Madagascar. You don’t exterminate an entire race of people. We’re Christians, the Jews are a cross we must bear. They’re pushy, insolent, think they’re smart, they double-park in front of their delicatessens on Twelfth Street—also on Linwood—and what do we do? Nothing. We make fun of them. Someone says, But they do make the movies we go to see. Well, not Walter. The last movie he saw was Gone With the Wind . He thought Clark Gable the blockade runner was good, but the rest of the movie a wasteof time. Walter had better things to do, work toward becoming as well known as Himmler, perhaps even a Nazi saint. He had finally decided yes, of course tell Otto and Jurgen what you intend to do. They were Afrika Korps officers, heroes themselves. Tell them they are the only ones in the world who will know about the event before it happens.
    The only ones if he didn’t count Joe Aubrey in Georgia, his friend in the restaurant business who owned a string of Mr. Joe’s Rib Joints, all very popular down there. Though lately Negro soldiers from the North were “acting uppity,” Joe said, coming in and demanding service, and he was thinking of selling his chain. Joe had an airplane, a single-engine Cessna he’d fly to Detroit and take Walter for rides and show him how to work the controls. Walter had come to consider Joe Aubrey his best friend, an American who never stopped being sympathetic to the Nazi cause. He would fly up to Detroit and take Walter for a spin, fly around Detroit, swoop under the Ambassador Bridge and pull out over Canada and Walter would say to his friend Joe Aubrey, “What a shame you aren’t in the Luftwaffe, you’d be an ace by now.” Joe Aubrey thought he knew what Walter had in mind, but no idea how he’d pull it off. The prospect got him excited.
    â€œGoddamn it, Walter, I can’t wait.”
    What was today? The eighth of April. Twelve days to go.

Seven
    T hey came out the side door from the kitchen, Jurgen saying, “I told him you’ll go mad and run away if you aren’t let out of the house.”
    â€œThe confinement is worse than the camp,” Otto said, “Walter so afraid someone will recognize us. I don’t see how it’s possible from the photos in the post office.”
    â€œI told him you want to see what our bombers have been doing.”
    â€œWhat I want,” Otto said, “desperately, is to leave this place and find something to do until the war ends. And I would like to speak German, which you refuse to do, you have become so