Once Upon an Us

We Sneak Out But it's Okay (Kind of)

To Fritz’s amazement, he had to walk through two more rooms, up a flight of stairs, and through what resembled a vault before reaching the office of the bar.  He had a feeling Tony had been the one who left everything unlocked as he seemed the most carefree of the three he’d left behind, but the vault had so many codes to get through, he doubted they were terribly concerned about someone finding the back rooms in the bar.  When he realized the vault needed multiple codes to be unlocked, he figured he’d return to Tony’s den and find the others. However, when he turned around, he found Jude grinning like the Cheshire cat. Fritz jumped and Jude’s grin grew.

“Saw you leave the catfight,”  he said, shrugging and stepping around Fritz to punch in the first code to the vault.  “Figured I’d join you and show you around, but you seem to have figured it out yourself.”

“Well, two rooms were locked,”  Fritz said. Jude nodded and started on the second code after correctly entering the first one.

“Yeah, Thea and Tony always keep their room locked and the other one is Carol’s bedroom,”  Jude explained. He glanced over his shoulder and added, “She doesn’t really trust Tony to leave her stuff alone.”

“Wait, you guys live here?”

Jude nodded then said,  “Well, I don’t. My wife and I live a couple of blocks south which is why I have to leave before the curfew is enforced.  The rest of them do, though.”

“And Tony and Thea live together?”  Fritz asked skeptically. Thinking back to the bickering he’d left behind, he doubted the two of them living together was such a great idea. 

“Oh yeah,”  Jude shrugged, entering the fourth and final code.  “They’re brother and sister. They always figure things out before they’re locked in a room for the night.  If they can’t, Tony sleeps in his den.”

Fritz didn’t ask any more questions, partially because he didn’t want to intrude, but also because the vault was now open and he could hear the music and talk from the bar.  Jude pushed open the vault and motioned for Fritz to go first. Fritz obliged and walked straight through the office and into the bar to find just what he’d expected: people drinking themselves into oblivion, drunks playing billiards, and music playing just loud enough he had to talk louder than usual to be heard.

“Come on,”  Jude said loudly, slapping his shoulder.  “I’ll introduce you to Carol.” Fritz let Jude push him through throngs of people and up to the bar.  He took a seat on one of the stools beside Jude and looked around the bar while Jude called for Carol.

“What, Jude?”  a blonde woman asked, walking over to the two of them after handing a customer his drink.  “We close in ten minutes and you should be leaving.”

“I know,”  Jude replied.  He grinned, turning to Fritz and putting a hand on his shoulder.  “Fritz, this is Carol Bayer. Carol, this is Fritz Gelfand.”

“Nice to meet you,”  Fritz said. Carol nodded at him and smiled, glancing distractedly to where a fight had broken out.

“You’re not moving in, right?”  Carol asked, running a hand through her long hair.  Fritz frowned. “You seem like a nice guy, but I don’t want more roommates right now.”

“Don’t worry, I have my own place,”  Fritz assured her. Carol nodded, suddenly looking very relieved.  Fritz decided not to take it too personally. He’d probably be at his wits end too if he had to live with Tony and Thea.

“Mind clearing everyone out?”  Jude asked Carol. Carol raised an eyebrow and Jude rolled his eyes.  “Curfew, clean up, mission debrief, how many reasons do you need?”

“Fine,”  Carol said.  She walked away from Jude and Fritz and around the corner.  Before Fritz could ask what the plan was, the lights shut off and the music was silent.  Everyone’s chatter stopped and Fritz blinked quickly to adjust to the dark.

“Close your eyes,”  Jude told him. Fritz did as told and seconds later, the lights came back on abruptly.  Everyone grumbled loudly as Carol reappeared from around the corner.

“You have two minutes to clear out,”  she yelled. The grumblings continued, but everyone hurried out when they caught sight of Carol’s glare.  Fritz watched in horror as Carol got everyone out of her bar in a minute and forty-two seconds. As soon as the last person was out, Carol returned to the calm girl Jude had introduced him to.  It was as if she had a twin and they’d switched places the change was so dramatic.

“What needs to be discussed that can’t wait for tomorrow?”  Carol asked, locking the front doors and closing the blinds.

“Thea blew our mission,”  Jude explained. He jumped when Thea appeared beside him, Tony on his other side looking equally annoyed at Jude’s accusation.

“No, I blew Romanski’s brains,”  she clarified. Fritz looked away as she tugged the tight skirt of her dress up and reached under.  He looked back over at the group when he heard something hit the bar top to see a slim stack of papers stapled together.

“Oh neat,”  Jude said, reaching for the papers and flipping through them.  “Nevermind. Thea didn’t blow our mission.”

“Something went wrong, though,”  Carol said, leaning on the bar. “The police are everywhere and the curfew is early.”

“As I said, I blew Romanski’s brains, not the mission,”  Thea told her. She shrugged and picked at her nails. “They might have noticed.”

“No one was caught though, right?”  Carol asked. Thea shook her head.

“Car had to be ditched, but I stole it anyway,”  Jude answered. Carol nodded and flicked off all the lights except for one leading to the office.  “I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Fritz, we should head out now if we want to avoid being caught out after curfew.”

“Wait, what?”  Fritz asked. Jude didn’t answer.  He just climbed off his barstool and headed for the door.  Thea motioned for Fritz to follow Jude, so he did.

“Stay out of trouble,”  Tony called after them. Jude just smirked, winking at Tony as the door to the bar shut behind him and Fritz.

Thea was pretty sure there was a reason Tony was dragging her out of Carol’s bar in the middle of the night, but she didn’t really want to ask why.  She could have made a list of reasons, but the very top two were really the only ones that counted for anything. One: Tony regularly did business with extremely sketchy people and two: there was a strict curfew in place that meant they’d be shot on sight.  Tony argued with the second one, saying it only counted if they were sighted—which was unlikely—but completely agreed to the first one.

“Don’t worry, both of those are completely invalid tonight,”  Tony whispered, pressing against the building they were currently hiding behind.

“They’re totally valid!”  Thea hissed back. Tony rolled his eyes.

“I said tonight,”  he reminded her. They stopped breathing as an officer walked past them with an assault rifle strapped to his back.  Once the man was far enough away it was safe to talk, Tony turned back around to look at his sister. “Tonight there are no sketchy people making illegal deals with me.  I just needed to show you something.”

“It couldn’t have waited until morning?”  Thea irritably asked. Tony peeked around the corner to make sure they were clear then darted across the road.  Thea beat him to the other side and waited for Tony’s next move.

“No, it couldn’t,”  Tony replied. Thea kept her mouth shut, saving all her questions and annoyed comments until they weren’t at risk of getting shot by patrol officers.  She followed Tony all the way across town, narrowly escaping some officers who were taking a break by a fire bin, and down to the pier. As expected, less police were standing around or patrolling on the docks than on the streets.

Thea spun around at the sound of soft scraping on the concrete ground.  Tony held a finger up to his lips, telling her to stay quiet, and peered around the corner of the shed they were currently hiding behind.  Thea crouched down and peered around the corner just in time to see a body slide behind a makeshift door. The door was pulled shut, the soft scraping returning to her ears, then the pier went silent.  Thea looked up at Tony quizzically, but he just nodded. Looking around the pier to make sure it was clear, he stepped from around the corner and scurried to the door. He turned to make sure Thea had followed him and waved widely when he noticed she hadn’t.  She growled quietly and shot across the open space.

“This better be good, Antonio,”  she breathed. Tony carefully pushed open the makeshift door and ducked inside.  Thea followed suit, closing the door behind her then following Tony down the dark corridor.

She’d taken thirteen steps when she began to smell the strong aroma of tobacco and whiskey.  She frowned, wondering where it was coming from and how the people ahead had gotten it. Tony didn’t deal with tobacco or alcohol, just falsified documents and the occasional computer hack.

Only four steps further and she could see a strip of yellow glowing on the floor ahead.  Tony grabbed her arm and pulled to the left of the light and down a new hall instead of through the door ahead.  She let him pull her along, trusting he knew what he was doing and not leading her into a death trap. They stopped just out of sight of the yellow glow and Tony reached up towards the ceiling.  He failed to reach it through and turned towards Thea.

“There’s a grate above us,”  he said, his voice barely audible.  “Climb on my shoulders, open it, then climb in.”  Thea did as she was told, easily mounting his shoulders.  He stood up slowly, wobbling only a little, then braced himself.  Thea reached up and found the grate sitting millimeters above her head.  She gently pushed it open, being careful not to make a sound. When the grate was completely moved, she brought her arms up through the hole and pulled herself into the air shaft.  Once her entire body was inside and she was stable, she reached down a hand to help pull Tony up. He replaced the grate covering once he was inside the shaft as well then grinned at her in the darkness.

“Lead on,”  she breathed.  Tony twisted his body around and started crawling through the shaft in the direction they’d come from.  Thea slithered behind him, not making a sound as they traveled through the shaft. She could see a light glowing further down the shaft and was practically choking on the scent of tobacco by now.  They crawled towards the light then stopped. The shaft wasn’t quite wide enough for both of them to lay side by side, so Thea crawled on top of Tony. He huffed, but couldn’t complain further without risking being heard.  As soon as Thea could see through the grate cover and down below, she buried her face in her hands to hide a gasp. Sitting in one room altogether was nearly every high ranking Nazi officer she’d ever heard about or had the misfortune to meet.

Thea could barely keep all her questions to herself as she and Tony hurried back across town before dawn.  They’d been in that smelly shack on the pier for about four hours, listening to what Thea assumed was a meeting the Führer did not know about.  Why else would the highest-ranking Nazi officers meet in a shabby, tobacco scented shack on the pier? How did Tony even know about this meeting?  How long had they been going on?

They arrived at the back door to Bayer’s Bar and Tony tugged on it.  It didn’t budge. He frowned and tried again, pulling harder and nearly falling when his grip slipped.  Thea glanced down the alley, knowing patrol officers were going to be passing them soon. She shoved Tony aside and fumbled with a brick on the cobblestone road.  It came loose, but nothing was underneath. She cursed and forced the stone back where it’d come from.

“You didn’t leave it unlocked?”  she hissed, running down the alley towards the dumpster.  Tony followed close on her heels, glancing over his shoulder to make sure they weren’t at risk of being shot yet.

“I did,”  Tony hissed back.  Thea opened the dumpster and Tony grimaced before climbing in.  He stumbled, hitting the back of the dumpster with a loud wham.  Thea hurled herself into the dumpster as footsteps pounded down the road towards them.  Tony had already pulled open the hidden door and Thea followed quickly, shutting it as soon as she’d slid inside.

“How come the door was locked then, huh?”  she asked, crawling through the pitch-black tunnel behind Tony.

“Maybe someone woke up while we were gone and locked it,”  Tony replied, “I don’t know.”

“This is the last time I’m sneaking out with you,”  Thea growled, waiting for him to open the door into the back room.  It slowly slid open and Tony climbed out of the tunnel, running his hands through his dark brown hair to make sure nothing had stuck in it between the air shaft and the tunnel.

“That’s what you said last time,”  Tony mumbled.