Armageddon In Retrospect - Kurt Vonnegut [45]
Funny, George forgetting LaSalle was out of business. He pulled a roll of bills from his hip pocket. The Germans had taken our money from us when we’d been captured, but some of the boys had hidden bills in the lining of their clothes. George, with his corner on cigarettes, had managed to get just about every cent the Germans had missed. Supply and demand—five bucks a smoke.
But the watch was a surprise. George had kept it a secret up to now—for very good reasons. The watch had belonged to Jerry Sullivan, the kid who’d been shot in the prison break.
“Where’d you get Jerry’s watch, George?”
George shrugged. “A beauty, ain’t it? Gave Jerry a hundred smokes for it. Cleaned me out to do it.”
“When, George?”
He wasn’t giving me his big, confidential grin anymore. He was mean and surly. “Whaddya mean, when? Just before he got it, if you want to know.” He ran his hands through his hair. “O.K., go ahead and say I got him killed. That’s what you’re thinking, so go ahead and say it.”
“I wasn’t thinking that, George. I was just thinking how lucky you were to put that deal over. Jerry told me the watch had been his grandfather’s, and he wouldn’t take anything for it. That’s all. I was just kind of surprised he made the deal,” I said softly.
“What’s the use?” he said angrily. “How can I prove I didn’t have anything to do with that? You guys pinned that on me because I had it good and you didn’t. I played square with Jerry, and I’ll kill the guy who says I didn’t. And now I’m playing square with you, Sammy. Do you want the dough and the watch or not?”
I was thinking back to the night of the break, remembering what Jerry had said just before he started crawling into the tunnel. “God, I wish I had a cigarette,” he’d said.
The noise of the tanks was almost a roar now. They must be past the camp, climbing the last mile to Peterswald, I thought. Not much more time to play for. “Sure, George, it’s a good deal. Swell, but what am I supposed to do while you’re me?”
“Almost nothing, kid. All you do is forget who you are for a while. Turn yourself in at Prague, and tell ’em you’ve lost your memory. Stall ’em just long enough for me to get back to the States. Ten days, Sammy—that’s all. It’ll work, kid, with both of us redheads and the same height.”
“So what happens when they find out I’m Sam Kleinhans?”
“I’ll be over the hill in the States. They’ll never find me.” He was getting impatient. “C’mon, Sammy, is it a deal?”
It was a crack-brained scheme, without a prayer of working. I looked into George’s eyes, and thought I saw that he knew that, too. Maybe, with a buzz on, he thought it would work—but now he seemed to be changing his mind. I looked at the watch on the table, and thought of Jerry Sullivan being carried back into camp dead. George had helped carry him, I remembered.
I thought of the gun in my pocket. “Go to hell, George,” I said.
He didn’t look surprised. He pushed the bottle in front of me. “Have a drink and think it over,” he said evenly. “You’re just making things tough for both of us.” I pushed the bottle back. “Very tough,” said George. “I want the tags awful bad, Sammy.”
I braced myself, but nothing happened. He was a bigger coward than I thought.
George held out the watch, and pushed down the winder with his thumb. “Listen, Sammy—it strikes the hours.”
I didn’t hear the chimes. All hell cut loose outside—the deafening clank and thunder of tanks, backfiring, and wild, happy singing, with accordions screaming above it all.
“They’re here!” I yelled. The war really was over! I could believe it now. I forgot George, Jerry, the watch—everything but the wonderful noise. I ran to the window. Big puffs of smoke and dust billowed up over the wall, and there was a banging on the gate. “This is it!” I laughed.
George yanked me back from the window, and pushed me against the wall. “This is it, all right!” he said. His face was filled with terror. He held a pistol against my chest.