The German Suitcase (19 page)

“Epstein,” Jake responded weakly, seeming confused by Max’s belligerent indifference. “Doctor Jacob Epstein.”

“Where did you study medicine?”

“The University of Munich…”

“As did I. Why don’t I remember you?”

“I’m…I’m in my last semester,” Jake whispered. “I mean, I was…”

“Ah, that explains it. Captain Maximilian Kleist, SS,” Max said, as if introducing himself. He shook Jake’s hand, squeezing it in a veiled signal, and prompted, “I understand you and your team were sent here to help deal with the typhus epidemic.”

Jake’s eyes flickered in confusion.

Max’s widened, pleading with him to follow his lead. “It’s rampant among the prisoners,” he went on, sensing Radek’s bristling presence behind him. “Our prisoner doctors have been overwhelmed by it.”

To Max’s relief, Jake’s expression brightened with insight. He seemed to be catching on. “Yes, yes I’m…I’m sure they are,” he said, straightening and sounding more engaged. “As I was explaining, we were sent here from the Hygienic Institute at Auschwitz to…to assist them. Epidemiology is our specialty.”

“Welcome to Dachau, doctor,” Max said, concealing his relief. “You’ll have your hands full.”

“We’ll do our best, Captain…”

“Good. Follow the rules; carry out your duties with competence; and you’ll be treated humanely.” Max turned to Radek who had been scowling throughout the exchange. “Finish up here, lieutenant,” he commanded. “I’m taking these people to the prisoner hospital.”

“Why?” Radek challenged with a disapproving sneer.

“So they can be fed, clothed and billeted,” Max replied as Jake and his group collected themselves and their belongings.

“That doesn’t answer my question, captain.”

“I told you, they’re here to deal with the typhus epidemic, lieutenant. With luck, they might just save our lives—even yours.”

“I don’t need Jewish swine to save my life,” Radek replied, reacting with a smug grin to the distant crack of a pistol shot that was followed by another and then another as the executions commenced. “I’ll be sure the commandant hears of this when I make my report.”

“…when I make my report, Sir!” Max corrected as the pistol shots continued in the distance. “I’ve no doubt it will be as well-received as your last one! When I make mine, I’ll be sure to mention your failure to carry out a direct order from a superior officer; and that you ordered the execution of an entire medical team sent here to fight typhus!” Max whirled on a heel, then led Jake and his team from the platform, collecting Dr. Hannah Friedman en route to the entrance gates. Jake trudged along next to him, lugging his suitcase. Shaken by his friend’s plight, Max was aching to relieve him of the burden, to carry the suitcase—his suitcase—but didn’t dare. “You’re safe now, Jake,” he whispered.

Jake allowed himself a thin smile, then eyeing the long line of prisoners they were passing, said, sadly, “And they’re all going to die…”

Max swallowed hard and nodded, then, through clenched teeth, asked, “What happened?”

“We were at the Mittenwald station,” Jake replied in a tense whisper. “I got caught. Eva got away.”

“She made it onto the train?”

“I’m not sure. Steig and his thugs went after her; but they came back empty-handed. With luck she’s in Venice with her family. I did my best to—”

“Silence! No talking!” Max interrupted with a threatening snap of his riding crop as they approached the entrance gates where two SS guards were posted. Both heel-clicked to attention and greeted Max with Nazi salutes. One of them, his voice ringing with die-hard zeal, exclaimed, “Heil Hitler!”

“Heil Hitler,” Max responded smartly, returning the salute. He had purposely maintained his military bearing to keep up the charade; but his Nazi-like demeanor sent a chilling shiver through Jake who found it unnerving in his fragile state.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Air France 001 from Paris arrived at JFK at 11:25 a.m. Mark Gunther had spent the flight in first-class-bliss being feted with champagne and fine cuisine. He really needed a little TLC after this trip. His wife had returned midweek as planned; but the problems with Gunther Global’s European operation had forced him to extend his stay. After clearing customs, he handed his bags to a driver who led the way to a Lincoln town car. Gunther settled in the back seat and thumbed a number on his cell phone labeled: Home. It was the first, but not the most pressing, call he would make.

While Gunther was touching base with his family, golden sunlight was streaming through the windows of Bart Tannen’s Sag Harbor beach house on this perfect Sunday morning. Celine had spent it giving her whisk and copper mixing bowl a workout; and he was serving-up her fluffy omelets/Pipérade to guests gathered around the table on the screened-in porch.

“So, Sergei…” Tannen said, addressing a grungy-looking fellow who was sipping a mimosa with one hand and toying with the keys to a Ferrari with the other, “…though Celine claims her omelets collapse whenever I talk shop over brunch, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give you a brief overview of GG’s services…”

“Is why I raise subject in first place,” Sergei said, with an amused smile.

“A brief overview,” Celine protested with a wink. It happened to coincide with the ring of Tannen’s cell phone which prompted her to pout and throw up her hands in the endearing way only French women can.

“Really brief,” Tannen quipped when he saw Gunther’s name on the screen.

“Sorry, I have to take this. Hey, welcome home,” he exclaimed, slipping out the screen door and down a few steps to the beach where gentle waves were lapping at the shoreline. “I hear you were getting beat up pretty good over there.”

“Bloodied,” Gunther grunted. “We have to talk. Me, you and that quirky little genius of yours who cooked up the Steinbach campaign.”

Tannen’s brows arched with suspicion. “Sounds like you heard…”

“Damn right I did.”

“Well, before we get into that…” Tannen said in a tone that promised something more interesting. “One of Celine’s friends shows up for brunch with this guy she’s been bedding. Turns out he’s Snorkle’s C.E.O.”

“Snorkle…” Gunther echoed, his eyes widening at the mention of the cutting-edge software company. “Sergei…Sergei Konkoff.”

“The one and only. We’re on our first round of mimosas when he lets on he’s unhappy with his agency, all but begging me to pitch him—which I was on the verge of doing when you called.”

“Good. We need all the business we can get; but it’s the bird in the hand I’m worried about, now.”

“Okay, got it. Give me a few minutes to track Stacey down and I’ll conference you in. What about Sol? Should I—”

“No. Just the Three Musketeers,” Gunther replied as the Town Car joined the stream of traffic heading north beneath the elevated Airtrain tracks. “I know this is going to be a pain in the ass,” Gunther went on, “but I need to go mano-a-mano with you two on this.”

“No problem,” Tannen said, pleased he wouldn’t have to deal with it, now. “We’ll do it first thing.”

“Not gonna happen. My schedule’s jammed: bean-counters, money-lenders and legal-eagles back to back the entire week,” Gunther replied in the tone he used when pulling rank. “I’m on the Van Wyck heading into the city. I’ll be at the office all afternoon getting caught up. Get your asses over there as soon as you can.”

Tannen sent an angry kick into a nearby dune, filling the air with sand, then returned to the house and gave Celine the bad news. A short time later, having made an appointment to pitch Sergei later in the week, he was behind the wheel of his Carrera, heading west on Route 27. The two-lane blacktop that snaked through the Hamptons to the Long Island Expressway was notorious for long stretches of gridlock, especially on summer weekends.

On the Upper West Side, Stacey was on her building’s roof deck stretched-out in a bikini across the canvas sling of her newly acquired beach chair, reading the
Sunday Times
. A daily on-line scanner, she preferred the feel of newsprint on weekends, and had
The Book Review
spread across her thighs. The critique of
A Happy Marriage
, a novel by Rafael Yglesias, revealed it to be about a man who comes to appreciate his thirty-year marriage in the face of his wife’s terminal illness—not the witty, incisive primer, a la Malcolm Gladwell, Stacey had imagined; and she easily set it aside when her cell phone rang, identifying Tannen as the caller.

Several hours later, having pulled a pair of jeans and a tank top over her bikini, she was camped out in GG’s reception area, scanning Facebook pages on her Blackberry to catch-up with what had been going on in the lives of friends and classmates scattered about the country. The office was weekend-quiet save for the distant drone of a vacuum cleaner when Tannen emerged from the elevator, looking frazzled. “Hi, I’m real sorry about this.”

“Hey, that’s why we get the big bucks,” Stacey said with a sarcastic grin as she followed him down the corridor toward Gunther’s office.

“Twenty-seven was jammed,” Tannen said, sounding exasperated as they entered the sun-washed interior with its bronze-tinted windows and Provence decor. “If the LIE wasn’t moving I’d still be in Suffolk County.”

Gunther looked up from the spreadsheet he’d been running and, dispensing with his legendary equanimity, erupted with outrage. “When were you planning to tell me about this?! You suspect the key player in a major campaign may be a Nazi war criminal! You know a
Times
reporter is all over it because he dug up the dirt in the first place! You had a meeting at the Wiesenthal Center! And I have to hear about it from my wife! Over the phone! In Paris! In the middle of a fucking meeting!”

“It’s…it’s complicated,” Tannen replied, visibly rattled. “Knowing what you were up against over there, I didn’t want to get into it. Especially on the phone.”

“So you let Grace do it for you?!”

“Come on, you know better than that,” Tannen protested, dropping onto one of the sunflower-patterned sofas. “It could be nothing. It didn’t make sense getting you involved until we’re sure one way or the other. We’re waiting on Wiesenthal, now.”

“Tell me about it,” Gunther snapped. “Grace touched base with Ellen Rother on Friday afternoon to review her Summer schedule, and—”

“—and Ellen just happened to mention our meeting and the rest is history,” Tannen surmised, finishing it.

“She also happened to mention the name Kleist,” Gunther continued, leaving his desk. “Which set a little bell in Grace’s belfry to ringing. Turns out the name Gisela Kleist appears in the provenance files of some of the Kandinskys she’s been busting her ass to borrow. FYI, Frau Kleist was a successful art dealer in Munich in the decades between the wars. Her husband was a wealthy industrialist who produced armor-plating for Nazi tanks. Their son was a doctor in the SS!”

“We know,” Tannen said, sounding stung. “But as Ellen explained, not every German was a Nazi. Not every Nazi was a war criminal. And not every Nazi doctor was—”

“The Kleists sure as hell sound like Nazis to me!”

“If they were, according to Dr. Epstein, they were Nazis who saved his life.”

“That’s assuming he’s Dr. Epstein! Which, I hear, is up for grabs! Furthermore, I have no recollection of him saying anything about the Kleists saving his life!”

“You weren’t there,” Tannen fired back, retaking some ground. “You and Grace had already left with Ellen.”

“Whatever. This isn’t only a nightmare for us and the client! It’s become one for Grace as well!”

Tannen looked confused. “Why? I don’t get it.”

“During the war, these Nazi bastards confiscated tens of thousands of artworks. Now, thanks to GG, how the Kandinskys that passed through Gisela Kleist’s hands were acquired by their sellers is in dispute, endangering their availability! Get it now?!”

Tannen’s shoulders sagged with remorse.

Stacey was sitting on the floor against Gunther’s desk, keeping a low profile. She got to her feet, and said, “I don’t mean to speak out of turn, Mr. Gunther, but we knew this could be dicey from the get-go; from the moment you pointed out the suitcase was from the Holocaust. On the other hand—”

“Yeah, I should’ve slammed the door on it when I had the chance! This is a fucking catastrophe!”

Stacey stiffened, her sunburned cheeks smarting from Gunther’s retort. “As copywriter on this account,” she said, undaunted, “I respectfully suggest we revise that to read: This…might turn out to be…a fucking catastrophe. I mean, it’s still possible our suspicions are unfounded; that we are mistaken, and—”

“Anything’s possible! But we can’t wait for the shit to hit the fan before ducking! GG can’t afford a P/R disaster let alone a Holocaust scandal! Neither can the client!” Gunther took a moment to settle, then shifted his look to Tannen and indicated his monitor. “No matter how I run the numbers, I’m staring at a negative balance sheet. European revenues are way off. The credit crunch has hit overseas clients even harder than domestic ones. Everyone’s hoarding cash. Which means advertising budgets are being slashed; which means GG’s financial health’s in jeopardy. My father busted his ass to build this company. He kept it afloat in bad times, and got rich when they were good. It’s not going south on my watch.”

Tannen nodded, digesting it. ‘The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat’. Nobody wins ’em all…”

“Stanley Ralph Ross, ABC, Wide World of Sports, 1971,” Gunther fired back, referring to the advertising executive who wrote the legendary slogan that had since become a cliché. “One of the best. He and Dad went way back.” He settled on the opposite sofa with a reflective sigh. “It was the potential for victory that kept the old man going. I don’t see that here. We’re looking at a lose-lose scenario. On one side, if Dr. Epstein, or whoever the hell he is, was on the ramp, he’s a war criminal in my book, and I want the son-of-a-bitch brought to justice. On the other, from a purely business POV, I want to wake up tomorrow and find out this was all a bad dream.”

“What do you want us to do?” Tannen asked.

“Damage control,” Gunther replied, going on to tick off the points on his fingers. “Minimize the impact. Work out a plan of action. Do whatever it takes to save our ass. Have you run it past P/R yet?”

“Before running it past you?” Tannen replied. “Not a chance. If push comes to shove, we figure they can spin it so GG and the client get the credit for unmasking a Nazi war criminal.”

“Great,” Gunther groaned. He laughed at a thought, then giving his sarcasm full rein said, “We could always change the kick-off line to: Not Surviving Harrowing Journeys. We’d be the first agency to build a campaign on endorsements from a family of rich Nazis whose son is a war criminal.”

Tannen couldn’t help but laugh. “Even Stace would hit the wall writing that copy…”

“Well, now that you mention it—” Stacey said, her eyes coming alive with mischief, “—the Kleist Kandinsky Collection has a sort of catchy rhythm to it. We could spell it KKK and do an interlocking logo…you know, kinda like a swastika?”

Gunther and Tannen stiffened for an instant; then, in obvious need of a light moment, laughed more heartily than Stacey expected.

“Is Sol up to speed on this?” Gunther asked, after they had settled.

Tannen nodded. “He’s in the same boat. Itching to bring one of these monsters to justice, but worried the war criminal thing’ll kill business. Not to mention he’s sitting on a pile of inventory and is terrified of postponing the launch. Makes sense to me.”

“Not to me,” Gunther snapped. “God help us if it turns out Dr. Epstein’s a Nazi monster, and we’ve already launched. No. No way. We’re postponing.”

Tannen shot an apprehensive glance at Stacey. “Well, in the spirit of full disclosure, I encouraged Sol to launch, now; to get ahead of the story, build sales momentum, and, if it goes our way, the sky’s the limit.”

“Not a chance,” Gunther declared. “There was a time when that strategy’d fly. Not anymore. I came away from this trip with two words burned into my brain: Risk Management. It’s the new global mantra. Nope. Sol’ll just have to live with it. No launch until we get the word on Dr. Epstein.” He punctuated it with a snap of his head, then glanced to his watch and groaned, propelling himself from the sofa.

“Something I said?” Tannen joked.

“Sunday dinner with Grace and the kids,” Gunther replied, picking up his briefcase and heading for the door. “I was late an hour ago. Let me know the instant you hear from Ellen Rother.”

Stacey and Tannen stared after him, and then at each other for a long moment.

“Now what?” Stacey prompted.

“Well, if Gunther’s right, if it’s about to hit the fan…” Tannen said with an engaging grin. “…then, according to your favorite author, we’re at a tipping point, no?”

Stacey waggled a hand. “More like a piece’a cake point,” she said, a little Texas creeping into her voice. “I mean, from where I’m sittin’, we’re just gonna have to find a way to have it and eat it too.”

Tannen raised a brow in tribute. “The only way to do that is to prove that Dr. Jacob Epstein is really Dr. Jacob Epstein; that all the talk of him being an imposter and a war criminal is bogus.”

“You left out defeat terrorism, fix the economy and solve the Middle East crisis,” Stacey cracked with an impish grin. “I don’t know, boss. I’m afraid this one’s a little above my pay grade.”

“Mine too.”

“Which leaves us with?”

“Ellen Rother…if we’re lucky.” Tannen paused, contemplating the alternative. “And your boyfriend if we’re not.”

“I’m not sure he’s my boyfriend anymore.”

“Hey, it’s his loss, kid,” Tannen said, giving her spiky hair a comforting pat. “Ever been to the Four Seasons?” he wondered. The legendary. Philip Johnson-designed restaurant on the building’s ground floor had an austere, sophisticated interior. Bead chain curtains, hanging in graceful catenaries, rose to the ceiling in shimmering waves across towering windows tinted the color of Seagram’s whiskey. This was where the city’s power elite had been meeting for more than five decades; where Gunther Global’s founder had held court at a corner table feting clients with an endless parade of Beefeater mists. The martini of its day, it was so named because the bartender used a perfume atomizer to spray vermouth into the air above the glass, creating a mist which settled atop the surface of the ice cold gin.