XPD (13 page)

Chapter 11

On the Ventura side of the county line, tucked between the mountains and the freeway, Westlake is a ‘planned community’ landscaped tastefully round a man-made lake. It is replete with countless pools and jacuzzis, tennis courts and stables, and there is a country club where, from the large picture windows of the restaurant, members fresh from the whirlpool baths can look across the tops of their cocktails and anticipate with satisfaction the completion of the second eighteen-hole golf course.

Max Breslow turned off the Ventura Freeway at the Westlake intersection. He turned into the shopping mall’s huge parking lot, passed the realtors, Swensen’s ice cream, Joe’s Photo and the hairdressers. He noted his wife’s yellow Chevette and the ‘Small is beautiful’ bumper sticker outside the supermarket and parked his Mercedes 450 SEL outside Wally’s Delicatessen.

‘Good evening, Mr Breslow,’ said the manager.

‘Good evening, Wally,’ he replied, accepting the common fiction that the manager was the proprietor.

‘Your order is just about ready to go. Can I fix you a drink while it’s packed?’

‘The usual, Wally.’

‘A Bloody Mary with all the fixings coming up, sir.’

Max Breslow noted with approval that the manager must have had a cold can of tomato juice ready and waiting for him, for the drink arrived almost as soon as he had ordered it. He sipped it while the manager waited for his reaction.

‘Excellent,’ said Breslow. The manager smiled and moved away to get the pickled herring and Westphalian ham which had been ordered on the phone. Breslow realized that he had been manipulated into having a drink. The food was probably not even prepared yet, but he didn’t mind that at all. He was always happy that men – and women too – should find him easy to manipulate, for in that way he was able to read their motives more easily and retain for himself the final control over any situation. That was the relationship he had contrived with Charles Stein. If that fat fellow thought that he was exploiting Max Breslow, well and good. Max would not wish to deprive Stein of that satisfaction. Even years later, long after this delicate business was settled, Max Breslow would allow Stein to brag and bluster about the Hitler Minutes, should he wish to do so. Max would be happy to go to his grave with his share of the secrets. But Kleiber was different. Breslow had the uncomfortable feeling that nowadays Kleiber had gained control.

‘Hello, darling.’

Max looked up and smiled. His wife had changed her hair style and he knew it was important that he comment upon it. ‘You look wonderful, my dear,’ he said. The Italian silk jacket and the matching skirt were cut in a design exported only to the USA. Her afternoon at the beauty salon, the faint tint in her hair, the professionally applied rouge and eye shadow, the bright scarf at her neck, all provided her with that healthy outdoor look which made Californian women so attractive to him, and made her look so much younger than her true age.

And Marie-Louise had adapted to this part of the world with a zeal that still surprised her husband; she went to classes in Japanese flower arrangement and low-calorie Mexican cooking, and even played sitar music on the quadrophonic hi-fi. And yet, despite all her time in America, Marie-Louise had not been able to eliminate from her speech the traces of her Berlin upbringing. Max Breslow dismissed it from his mind and gave his wife a decorous kiss that did not smudge her make-up. She would, he thought resignedly, say ‘darlink’ for the rest of his life, and for the rest of her own life too, probably.

‘You haven’t forgotten that we have visitors for dinner?’ she reminded him.

‘I haven’t forgotten,’ he said. He had been thinking of this man Boyd Stuart while driving home through the canyon. Willi Kleiber, who knew much more about such things, guessed that Stuart must be an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service. It would be an interesting evening, thought Breslow. Stuart’s organization was one which Max Breslow held in high esteem.

Marie sat down beside her husband but would not have a drink. She was still trying to lose another five pounds. It was absurd that she should wait for him, since they would both have to go home in their separate cars, but she preferred to do so. The manager brought the ham and herring wrapped in heavy moistureproof paper bearing the name ‘Wally’s Deli’ and a card that said, ‘We are sorry you cannot join us but please call again soon – Wally.’

Max toyed with the parcels. He was pleased that his wife had asked him to get these items. He had worried lest once again the meal was going to be vichyssoise followed by quenelles, puréed vegetables and a Bavarian cream. And his wife was not the only one obsessed with these new food-processing machines. Nearly every dinner party they went to nowadays served machine-mashed baby food. Max detested it.

‘Will you write the name cards, Max darling? I always get the spellings wrong.’

‘And what line of business are you in, Mr Stuart?’

Boyd Stuart was sitting next to his hostess but Max Breslow interrupted a conversation about the gasoline shortage to answer down the length of the table, ‘Mr Stuart is considering putting some of his company’s money into a film I’m making.’

There was a silence and then Marie Breslow offered second helpings of her lemon mousse round the table. Max Breslow’s response was a fixed smile of displeasure. Sometimes he wondered whether his wife enjoyed provoking him.

‘Mr Stein was actually
there
,’ announced Max Breslow suddenly in the silence. He nodded to where Charles Stein was upending a large cut-glass bowl of mousse and scraping the last of it on to his plate.

‘Actually where?’ said the bearded man sitting opposite Stuart. He was a psychiatrist who lived – together with his wife, who taught the art of relaxing to east Los Angeles delinquents – in a split-level town house almost next door to the Breslows.

‘Merkers, Thuringia … a place in Germany. I’m making a film about it.’

‘Oh, that place,’ said the bearded man. ‘Would you think me rude if I poured myself a little more of that German wine? You must be the last people in Westlake holding out against the Californian whites.’

Max Breslow smiled but made no comment.

Stuart said, ‘I’m interested to hear that you were at Merkers, Mr Stein. Did you go into the mine itself?’

‘The place where the treasure was found,’ explained Mrs Breslow to the psychiatrist’s wife.

‘Can’t say I did,’ said Stein. ‘More’s the pity. I would have liked to get my hands on some of that stuff they found in there.’

Charles Stein was too large for the delicate little dining chairs, too large in fact for the dining room with its frail antique dresser and tiny side tables. He sat with his belly resting against the table edge, having finished a large second portion of lemon mousse after emptying the final dregs of the cream jug on to it. Now he had turned his attention to the basket of dark breads and biscuits which accompanied the cheese platter. He selected a slice of pumpernickel and spread it with butter before biting a corner from it.

‘Mr Stein was a friend of the man who first wrote the story,’ explained Max Breslow. ‘He’s going to be a wonderful help to the scriptwriter.’

‘Chuck,’ said Stein. ‘Everyone calls me Chuck.’ He rocked back on the rear legs of the antique dining-room chair. Mrs Breslow watched in open-mouthed horror.

‘You were there?’ persisted Stuart.

‘I was with a quartermaster trucking battalion,’ said Stein. Leaning forward with his knife, poised, he chopped a segment of Camembert cheese and popped it into his mouth. ‘Our people moved some of the stuff out of the mine.’ His words were distorted by the cheese in his mouth.

‘Have you been able to contact many people who were there?’ Stuart asked Max Breslow.

‘There are not so many of them left,’ said Breslow. ‘It’s a long time ago and men have died, are sick, have forgotten or wish to forget.’

‘Is it so long?’ said Stuart.

‘Most of the soldiers involved were rear-echelon personnel,’ said Stein, struggling to cut through the rind of the Stilton. ‘The fighting troops were youngsters and in peak physical condition, but the average age of the men in the support units was much higher, and we got the physical rejects too.’

‘From what I heard,’ said Stuart, ‘there was not only gold in the mine. There were paintings, rare books and secret documents too.’

Stein pushed the rest of the cheese and pumpernickel into his mouth so that he could reach forward with both hands to move the vase of carefully arranged flowers. Now Stuart had a clear view of the fat man. He had the sort of figure with which no tailor could cope. Already his white linen suit had become rumpled and creased, and there were gravy stains on his lapel.

‘Rare books,’ said Stein. He nodded. ‘Rare German army material, secret government archives … Nazi stuff and personal documents concerning Hitler himself.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I handled some of it and I saw the inventory sheets. I was an orderly room clerk. They used our mimeograph machine to duplicate the records. One of the sergeants – a man named Vanelli – made an extra copy and kept it as a souvenir.’

‘That sounds interesting,’ said Stuart. ‘Have you kept in touch with Vanelli?’

‘I know where he is,’ said Stein looking Stuart straight in the eyes.

‘I’d like to meet him,’ said Stuart.

‘I doubt that it could be arranged.’

‘Enough film talk,’ said Mrs Breslow, bringing in a large pot of coffee. ‘Let’s all sit on the soft seats, shall we?’ Again she watched Stein tilt back on one of her fragile dining chairs.

‘I’ll tell you this,’ said Stein, not taking his eyes off Stuart, ‘there was stuff in that mine that would destroy Winston Churchill’s reputation overnight.’ His voice was strident and seemed unnaturally loud in the small room.

The bearded psychiatrist turned so that his good ear, rather than his slightly deaf one, was towards Stein and cupped it so that he could hear better. ‘What was that about Winston Churchill?’ he said with mild interest.

‘Rumours, Charles. Rumours,’ Max Breslow told Stein with studied calm. He handed Stein a large glass and took the stopper from a brandy decanter. Stein watched while the brandy poured.

‘Rumours perhaps,’ agreed Stein, slowly and grudgingly like a peevish child.

‘Come and sit in the lounge,’ Max Breslow urged in a warm voice that expressed his pleasure at Stein’s reply.

Everyone at the table got to their feet. The psychiatrist’s wife was the first one into the large lounge that overlooked the man-made lake. At the dock of each house a small boat was tied, humming quietly as it recharged its batteries at the power line. No internal combustion engines were permitted to pollute the water. On the far side of the lake, the residents and guests of other houses gestured and reacted inside the yellow-lit, plate-glass boxes, a dozen doll’s house dramas reflected in the dark water.

The psychiatrist’s wife spread her arms wide apart and whirled around fast enough to make her long Pucci silk dress float. ‘That was a divine meal, Marie-Louise.’ She was one of the very few people, apart from Max, who called her Marie-Louise. ‘Have you ever tasted such delicious poulet au champagne, Mr Stein?’

‘No,’ said Stein, ‘I never have.’

‘You are so kind,’ said Mrs Breslow. To what extent her neighbour was trying to demonstrate her psychological skills she could not tell, but she was grateful for her help in smoothing over what could have become an embarrassing scene between Mr Stein and the young Englishman. Mrs Breslow began pouring the coffee into tiny Limoges cups. ‘Try some of the chocolates too,’ she urged Stein with that tone in which diet breakers conspire. ‘Hand-coated brandy cherries from a tiny shop in Munich. Max used to buy them for me before we were married.’

Stein popped one into his mouth, crushed it between his teeth, tasted the sweet alcohol filling and reached for another before he swallowed.

‘Where do you buy them?’

‘Max has his business partner bring them over from Munich,’ said Mrs Breslow.

‘He didn’t tell me about his business partner in Munich,’ said Stein. He smiled at her. ‘But the chocolate-coated cherries are dandy, Mrs Breslow. Really dandy.’ He lifted the lid of the box high above his head so that he had to twist his neck to read the label. ‘Yes, sir.’ He helped himself to another as he replaced the box on the table.

‘You heard the story about them finding Hitler in Säo Paulo?’ said Stein suddenly, his mouth filled with chocolate and cherry. Everyone turned to look at him. ‘They ask him to come back and run Germany. No, he says, he won’t go. So they keep trying to persuade him. They bring in the public relations guys, and the ad agency men. They offer him money and anything he wants.’ Stein looked round to see if everyone was listening. They all were. ‘Hitler says he likes it in Säo Paulo. He’s got his mortgage almost paid, and a grown-up son and a married daughter by a second wife. He don’t want any part of going back to Germany. But finally he gives in. But before he goes back to be dictator of Germany again he insists on one thing … right!’ Stein waved a finger in the air in imitation of Hitler, and hoarsely yelled, ‘
No more Mr Nice Guy
!’ Stein laughed to show it was the punch line of the joke.

Stuart had heard the joke before but still he laughed. Somehow Stein had managed to imbue this thin story with all the pathos of his Jewish soul. When he told this joke it was outrageous and funny. He laughed loudly and Stuart joined in. But no one else laughed.

‘I got a million stories like that,’ said Stein.

The party broke up about eleven o’clock: the psychiatrist had an early patient and his wife had booked the tennis coach for 7.30
A.M.
‘Everybody wants him,’ she explained.

Boyd Stuart was getting up to go when he felt the heavy hand of Charles Stein on his shoulder. ‘Stay for another cup of coffee and a glass of something more,’ said Breslow. ‘We have some business to talk over, my dear,’ he explained to his wife.

‘I shall only yawn or say something silly,’ she told Stuart. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go right to bed.’

‘Of course, Mrs Breslow. Thank you for a wonderful meal, and a truly delightful evening.’