MacIver had eased a cork and it had hit the roof of the cab with a noise like a gunshot. They poured it into mess tins and drank the fiercely bubbling golden champagne without talking. When they had finished it, MacIver tossed the empty bottle out into the dark night. ‘It’s a long time between drinks, pal.’
‘For an officer, and a flatfoot, you’re a scorer,’ said Stein.
It was a hell of a thing for an officer to do. A long time between drinks; he could never hear that said without thinking of MacIver.
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Breslow politely. His head was cocked as if listening to some faint sound. Stein realized that he’d spoken out loud.
‘It’s a long time between drinks,’ said Stein. ‘It’s an American saying. Or at least it used to be when I was young.’
‘I see,’ said Breslow, noting this interesting fact. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘OK,’ said Stein. ‘Rum and Coke if you’ve got it.’
Breslow rolled his swivel chair back towards the wall so that he could open the small refrigerator concealed in his walnut desk.
‘It’s darned hot in here,’ said Stein. ‘Is the air-conditioner working?’ His weight made him suffer in the humidity and now his hand-stitched suit showed small dark patches of sweat.
Breslow set up paper napkins and glasses on his desk top and put ice into one of them before adding the rum and Coke. He did it fastidiously, using metal tongs, one cube at a time. For himself he poured a small measure of cognac, without ice.
Stein had been nursing a floppy straw hat. As he eased himself slowly from the low armchair to get his drink from the desk, he tossed his hat on to a side table where film trade magazines had been arranged in fan patterns.
He didn’t get his drink immediately; going to the window he looked out. Melrose came close to the freeway here in one of the older districts of the city. This office was an apartment in a two-storey block repainted bright pink. Across the street brick apartment buildings and dilapidated little offices were defaced with obscene Spanish graffiti and speared with drunken TV antennae, and the whole thing was birdcaged with overhead wires. The freeway traffic was moving very slowly so that the Hollywood hills beyond wobbled in a grey veil of diesel fumes. Stein pulled his sunglasses from his face and pushed them into the top pocket of his jacket. He blinked in the bright light and dabbed his face with a silk handkerchief. ‘Damned hot.’ The sun was blood red and its light came through the slats of the venetian blind to make a pattern across Stein’s wrinkled face. It was always like this the day after a bad storm.
‘I’ve spoken to the janitor,’ explained Breslow. ‘The repairmen are working on the air-conditioning. Yesterday’s heavy rain got into the mechanism.’
‘MacIver owed me money,’ said Stein, ‘a lot of money. He gave me a part of his interest in your movie as surety.’
‘I hope you took the precaution of having him put that in writing,’ said Breslow.
‘Right,’ said Stein. He did not enlarge upon it; it was best to keep such untruths as brief as possible.
‘We are not even in the pre-production stage at present,’ said Breslow. He put the cognac to his mouth but it did no more than moisten his lips. ‘It is possible still that we will decide not to make the film. Unless we make it, there will be no money.’
‘All MacIver’s war experiences, was it?’
‘Together with some anecdotes he gathered from his comrades, some guesses about what went on in high places, and some creative writing concerning MacIver’s intrepid contribution to the Allied victory.’
Stein took his drink from the desk and tasted it before adding another measure of Coke. Then he looked at Breslow who was still enjoying his own description of MacIver’s manuscript.
‘The movie-going public is always interested in such stories,’ explained Breslow. ‘A little gang of rear-echelon soldiers stealing everything they could lay their hands on.’ His eyes were still on Stein and he smiled again. ‘Crooks in uniform: it’s an amusing formula.’
Stein’s hands went out with a speed that was surprising in such an overweight physique. His huge fingers and thumb grasped Breslow’s shirt collar with enough force to rip the button loose. He shook Breslow very gently to mark his words. ‘Don’t ever act disrespectful to me or to MacIver or any of our friends, Breslow. We don’t let strangers discuss what we did back in 1945. We left a lot of good buddies out there in the sand and the shit and the offal. I buried my kid brother on the battlefield. We stumbled on a little good fortune … that’s the way it goes. The spoils of war … we were entitled. You just remember that from now on.’ He released his grip and let Breslow straighten up and adjust his collar and tie.
‘I’m sorry to have offended you,’ said Breslow, with no trace of regret. ‘I understood you to say that you were not one of Mr MacIver’s comrades.’
Stein realized that he had been deliberately provoked into revealing more than he’d intended. ‘The spoils of war,’ said Stein. ‘That’s what it was.’
‘No offence intended,’ said Breslow, with a humourless smile. ‘You can call it anything you want; it’s quite all right with me.’
Disarrayed by his exertions, Stein hitched up his trousers and tucked in his shirt with a practised gesture. ‘Were you in the war, Mr Breslow?’
‘I was too young,’ said Breslow regretfully. ‘I spent the war years in Canada working for my father.’
‘Breslow,’ said Stein. ‘That name comes from Breslau, the German town, right? Were your folks German?’
‘What do I know about towns in Germany!’ said Breslow in a sudden burst of irritation. ‘I am a US citizen. I live here in California. I pay my taxes and stand at attention when they play the national anthem … What do I have to do? Change my name to Washington DC?’
‘That’s a good joke,’ said Stein, as if admiring an expensive watch. He took the Coca-Cola can and shook the last few drops into his glass before draining it.
‘You’ll get your money, Mr Stein,’ said Breslow. ‘Providing of course that you furnish the necessary agreement signed by Mr MacIver. We’ll not wait for probate if that’s what’s worrying you.’ Breslow sipped a little of his cognac. ‘There is a lot of money available to buy the documents Mr MacIver spoke of.’
‘What documents?’
‘Secret documents … about Hitler. Surely you’ve heard of them.’
‘I might have heard rumours,’ admitted Stein.
‘A great deal of money,’ said Breslow.
‘And the job for my son?’
Breslow looked again at the biographical résumé that Stein had put on his desk. ‘Well, he has no experience of movie making, and of course no labour-union membership.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Still, it might be possible to make a place for him. Especially if he’s inherited his father’s forcefulness.’
Breslow tucked the résumé under the leather corner of his large blotting pad. Then he took the Coke tin and the glasses, wiped away a few spilled drops and threw the paper napkins into the waste basket. It was a fussy gesture and Stein watched him with contempt. ‘I’ll get my secretary to fix an appointment for me to meet your son,’ said Breslow. He smiled and moved towards the door. Stein did not move. ‘Unless you have any questions …’ said Breslow to spur his departure.
‘One question, Mr Breslow,’ said Stein. ‘Why are you carrying a gun?’
‘Me?’
‘Don’t kid around with me, Breslow. It’s in a holster in your belt. I saw it just now.’
‘Oh, the tiny pistol.’
‘Yeah, the tiny pistol. What’s a nice respectable movie producer like you doing with a Saturday night special in your waistband?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Breslow, ‘I have to carry a lot of cash.’
‘I knew there had to be a reason,’ said Stein. He reached for the broad-brimmed, floppy hat and plonked it on his head.
Max Breslow watched the street through the slatted blinds. He saw Charles Stein go to the Buick Riviera wit
h the vinyl top which he’d left in the empty dirt lot behind the liquor store, and waited until he saw the car bump its way over the pavement edge and join the east-bound traffic. Only then did Breslow unlock and go through a door into the adjoining room.
It was as bleak and impersonal as its neighbour: plastic woven to look like carpet, plastic coloured to look like metal, and plastic veneered with wafers of richly coloured woods.
Sitting at a side table, in front of a small sophisticated cassette recorder and a pair of discarded headphones, a broad-shouldered man was waiting patiently. Willi Kleiber had close-cropped hair and a blunt moustache of the sort that British army officers used to favour, but no one would have mistaken Willi Kleiber for such. He had the wide head and high cheekbones that are so often the characteristics of Germanic people from the far side of the River Vistula. His nose was large, like the cutting edge of a broken hatchet, and his body was heavy and muscular. He had taken off his khaki golfing jacket and loosened his tie. His legs were stretched out so that his shiny, black high boots could be seen below his trousers.
‘What do you think, Willi?’ Max Breslow asked him.
Willi Kleiber pulled a face. ‘You did all right, Max,’ he said grudgingly.
‘What will happen next?’
Kleiber held the headphones together and wound the wires round them carefully as he considered his reply. ‘We’ve got rid of Lustig. You’ve let Stein know we can pay a lot of money for the documents, and soon he will discover that he’s lost a great deal of money. Then he will come back to us.’
‘How did you get Stein’s money?’
‘Not me; the Trust. When you have the active assistance of some of the most successful bankers in Germany, such swindles are easy to arrange.’
‘What did you mean … We’ve got rid of Lustig? You said you’d given him money for a vacation in Europe.’
Kleiber grinned. ‘You leave that side of things to me, Max. Don’t give Bernard Lustig another thought; the less you know about him, the better.’ He zipped up the front of his jacket to make a sudden noise.
‘I wish I’d never got into this,’ said Breslow. He could not muster the enthusiasm and energy that Kleiber brought to these crazy adventures, and wished he’d been able to stay out of this madness. Listening to Kleiber talking of such antics over coffee and cognac was amusing; but now he was involved, and he was frightened.
‘The Trust needed you,’ said Kleiber.
Breslow looked at him and nodded. Kleiber was simplistic, if not to say simple. Orders were orders and obeying them was an honoured role. Breslow had been the same when he was a young man. All that wonderful idealism, and the sense of purpose that is known only to the young, all squandered to the whims of Hitler and his fellow gangsters. What a tragic waste.
‘You were a Nazi, Max. Don’t ever forget it. And don’t count on anyone else forgetting it.’
‘That was a lifetime ago, Willi,’ said Breslow wearily.
Kleiber closed the lid of the tape recorder with a sound that was intentionally loud. ‘Remember last year, when the old woman recognized you in that coffee shop in Boston? She shouted “SS murderer” at you, didn’t she? She won’t forget, Max. You need the Trust. They’re not Nazis, either, Max, but they will help.’
‘That old woman in the coffee shop was mad,’ said Breslow.
‘You left your breakfast and rushed into the street, Max. You told me so yourself.’
Billy Stein was waiting in the shiny new Buick Riviera parked alongside the liquor store. He leaned across the passenger seat to open the door for his father, and had the engine started by the time his father climbed into the car. The warning buzzer sounded. ‘Can’t you do something about that buzzer? I hate these darned seat belts.’ Finally Stein senior got the safety belt round his enormous frame. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. He moved a canvas overnight bag on to the back seat.
The car bumped out of the car park and into the traffic. ‘Not exactly like Metro, is it? I guess he works out of that apartment to evade the city business tax.’ They drove past the liquor store with rusty bars on the windows and a new wire cage on the doors. ‘Melrose sounds like a good enough address for a movie company,’ said Billy, ‘until you see which end of it they’re located.’
‘Right,’ said his father. Charles Stein opened the glove compartment and found some cigars. He ripped the metal cap off one of them, and used the dashboard lighter to get it going. He puffed on it energetically before he spoke. ‘Seems like our Mr Bernie Lustig is not around any more.’ He worked his lips to get a fragment of tobacco leaf out of his mouth. ‘Seems like he’s gone to Europe for an unspecified duration.’
‘So who did you talk with?’
‘A gent who calls himself Max Breslow.’
‘German?’
‘Canadian,’ said Stein sarcastically. ‘It must be one of those Red Indian names.’
‘You don’t like him?’ said Billy.
‘He’s a Nazi, Billy. I can always recognize them.’
Billy nodded. He was used to such pronouncements about anyone with a German name who was not immediately identifiable as Jewish. ‘He says he was too young to be in the war.’
‘But you don’t believe him?’
‘He’s got very black hair,’ said Stein. ‘And when a guy’s hair suddenly goes black overnight, he’s old.’
Billy Stein laughed and his father chuckled too.
‘And he has a gun,’ added Charles Stein, realizing that his verdict on Max Breslow was not carrying much weight with his son.
‘Half the people I know in this town have a gun,’ said Billy. He shrugged. ‘At home we’ve got that damned great souvenir gun you brought home from the war.’
‘But I don’t go around with it stuck in my waistband,’ said Stein. Billy smiled. It would be hard to imagine such a large piece of ordnance anywhere but on the wall of Charles Stein’s study.
‘So you want to go straight to the airport?’
‘With just one stop at Jim Sampson’s law office. La Cienega, in the big Savings and Loan building – he’s expecting me. Then take me to the airport. We’ll go south to La Tijera. It’s a fast way. Right?’
If Billy had hoped that the meeting with his old army friend Jim Sampson would get his father into a better state of mind, his hopes were dashed by the sight of Charles Stein emerging from the Savings and Loan building on La Cienega. His father slumped into the passenger seat. ‘The airport.’ He searched in the glove compartment and found an airline timetable. ‘I knew I would have to go to Switzerland, Billy. I’m going to have to go right now.’
‘I don’t like to see you worried, dad. Is there anything I can do?’
‘There’s a direct flight … I don’t like what’s going on here, Billy. Colonel Pitman is going to have to hear about it, and I never like putting this kind of thing in writing.’ He pulled his nose. ‘And it’s risky talking on the phone these days.’
‘It will be good for you,’ said Billy. ‘A change of scene.’
While Billy picked his way through the heavy airport traffic his father made sure that he had enough cash and his credit cards for the trip. At last his son swung the car into the parking lot with an arrogant skill he had developed as a car park attendant during his college days.
‘Looking forward to seeing the colonel again? You like him, I know. Stay through the weekend, dad. Have a good time.’
‘I always get a real kick out of seeing him,’ said Stein. ‘He’s an old man. He’s running out of time, you know. A great man, Billy. Make no mistake about that.’ He puffed on the cigar.
Billy switched off the engine and looked at his watch to see how long there was before his father’s plane departed. ‘Say, dad, if this colonel of yours was such a gung-ho hero, how come that when he got out of West Point they didn’t send him to the Rangers, or the Airborne, or the Green Berets or something?’ He flinched as he recognized a sudden anger in his father’s face. But his attempt to modify this implied criticism only m
ade matters worse. ‘What I mean is, dad, why the heck did the colonel end up running some little quartermaster trucking battalion?’
Charles Stein took his son’s arm in a grip that caused him pain. ‘Don’t ever let me hear you say anything like that again. Not ever. Do you understand?’ Stein spoke in a soft and carefully measured voice. ‘Do you think you’d have had your fancy Princeton education and your T-bird and your Cessna and your yacht, if it wasn’t for the colonel and what we risked our necks for back in 1945?’
‘Jesus, dad. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything.’
In a moment the anger had passed. ‘It’s time I told you all about it, Billy. I’m not getting any younger and the colonel has been a lot on my mind lately. Last night I dreamed about the night we stole those trucks.’ And Stein told his son about the fateful night when he went to the colonel suggesting the ways in which the paperwork could be fixed so that the trucks carrying the bullion and treasures would be documented as if they were taking rations to an artillery company right near the Swiss border. Billy listened with amazement.
‘Was it your idea, dad? You never told me that.’
‘I never told you half of it, Billy. Maybe I should have told you a long time ago. Yes, Colonel Pitman was in town when our secret orders arrived from Third Army. Pitman was a major then, I was the orderly room corporal. A motorcycle messenger brought an envelope marked with the rubber stamp of Army HQ and plastered with SECRET marks. The guy on the bike wanted his receipt signed by Pitman. I couldn’t tell him that Pitman was in town with a bottle of scotch I’d got for him and planning to screw a young fraulein he’d met that morning in the mayor’s office. It was wartime. The battalion was on alert and ready to move. For being off base and fraternizing with a German civilian he would have been court-martialled.’