XPD (7 page)

‘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 made 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.’

‘You forged his signature?’

‘That’s what orderly room corporals are for.’

‘You saved his career, dad.’

‘And he saved my ass a few times too, Billy. We made a good team.’

‘And what were those secret orders?’

Stein laughed. ‘Secret orders from Army HQ. The war in Europe was in its final few hours. I was convinced it contained orders shipping us stateside and I wanted to be the first one to know.’ He leaned closer to his son. ‘I figured I might be able to get a couple of bets on before the official announcement was made.’ He laughed again. ‘So I was mighty disappointed when I read we were to supply transport for an escort detail. Just a milk run from Merkers to Frankfurt, I remember thinking at the time. Little did I realize that I was holding in my hand a piece of paper that would net me several million dollars.’

The two men sat silent in the car for several minutes, then Stein said, ‘Just look at the time. We’d better get moving or I’ll miss the flight to Geneva and find myself changing planes in Paris or London or something.’

‘Take care of yourself, dad.’

‘You bet your ass I will, Billy,’ said Charles Stein.

It was Friday, 25 May 1979.

Chapter 7

On that same Friday in London, Boyd Stuart and Jennifer had lunch at Les Arcades, a small brasserie in Belgravia. There was an auction at Sotheby’s across the street and the tables were crowded. Jennifer Ryden – as she now preferred to be known – wore a pale fur coat. Her eyes were bright, her lipstick perfect and her skin glowing with health. She was the same bright, beautiful girl that Boyd Stuart had fallen so madly in love with, but now he could see her with clearer vision.

‘Daddy has been quite wonderful!’

‘Sending me to California, you mean?’

‘Isn’t that supposed to be secret?’ she said. There was no mistaking the rebuke. She stabbed a small section of dry lettuce and put it into her tiny mouth. She never ate food that might dribble down her chin or drip on to her clothes. That was how she always managed to look so groomed and clean.

‘I have no secrets from you, Jennifer,’ said Boyd Stuart.

She looked, up from her plate and smiled to acknowledge that her ex-husband had won the exchange. ‘You haven’t come across that inlaid snuff box, I suppose?’

‘I’m sure it’s not in the flat, Jenny.’

‘Nor the gold watch?’

‘No,’ said Stuart.

‘It’s inscribed “Elliot” … an old watch, a gold hunter.’

‘You’ve asked me a dozen times, Jenny. I’ve searched high and low for it.’ In response to Stuart’s signal the waiter served coffee.

‘I’ve brought a list,’ she said. She reached into her Hermès bag for a small leather pad and gold pencil. He had always dreaded those little lists which she presented to him. There were shopping lists and reading lists, appointment lists and, only too often, lists of jobs that others had to complete for her. ‘I found the photo of mummy in the silver frame,’ she said, carefully deleting that from the list of possessions before passing it to him. ‘Jennifer Ryden’ was engraved at the top of the sheet of watermarked paper and the handwriting was neat and orderly without errors. ‘It’s the gold watch that is most important,’ she added. ‘That detective story book is from the London Library; if we can’t find it, I shall simply have to pay them … Did you look in the tiny drawer in the dressing table, the one that sticks?’

‘I’ve told you, Jennifer, if you don’t believe I’m capable of finding these odds and ends, you can look around yourself. You still have your key.’

She gave a theatrical shiver. ‘Seeing all the furniture and things would bring all the horrors back to me.’

‘You’ve taken most of the furniture,’ said Boyd Stuart, ‘and the bedroom and the hall have been redecorated.’

‘It was daddy’s watch. He’s so attached to it. I do wish you would have a proper look.’ She tipped her head to one side and gave him her most winsome smile.

‘Are you meeting someone?’

She swung round to see out of the window. There was a spindly young fellow waiting outside. He looked like the sort of young man Jennifer had always had to carry parcels, hail taxis and hold umbrellas over her. His checked cap was pulled low over his eyebrows and he wore a regimental tie and a well-cut suit. He saw Jennifer getting to her feet and waved to her. She didn’t wave back. ‘Now don’t just
say
you’ll look for them,’ she said, touching the sheet of paper, ‘and please arrange for someone to forward my mail.’

‘Jennifer, darling,’ said Boyd Stuart, ‘divorcing you is going to make me the happiest man in the world.’

‘That’s loutish,’ said Jennifer Ryden, using one of her favourite terms of disapproval.

‘I am a lout,’ said Boyd Stuart. ‘I’ve always been a lout.’

‘Well, don’t be a lout about daddy’s gold watch,’ she said.

‘I’ll search for it,’ said Boyd Stuart.

She looked at him as she drew the fur coat over her shoulders, and felt bound to offer an explanation. ‘It has sentimental value. Mummy and daddy are furious with me for losing it.’

‘Jennifer, you didn’t let yourself into the flat and force open that antique desk of mine, did you?’

‘Boyd! How could you suggest such a thing?’

She glanced at herself in the mirror and touched her hair in a gesture which reminded Stuart of her father. She kissed him goodbye but, heedful of her lipstick, she did not allow their lips to touch. Boyd Stuart watched her as she walked out, saw the effect she had upon the eager young man awaiting her and recognized something of himself. He was still thinking of her when the waiter brought him the bill for lunch.

Chapter 8

Geneva was cloudy and cool when the jumbo jet brought Stein there on the afternoon of Saturday, 26 May 1979. Erich Loden, Colonel Pitman’s chauffeur, had been permitted to go through the customs and the underground tunnel to wait for Stein at the gate.

‘Your son phoned to say you were coming, Mr Stein. The colonel was resting but I was sure he’d want me to come out and meet you as I usually do. Two pieces of luggage, Mr Stein?’

‘Shiny aluminium.’ Stein handed him the baggage receipts. ‘I’ll step across to change some money at the bank counter, Erich. I’ll see you at the customs – green door. Where’s the car?’

‘Immediately outside – arrivals level.’

Stein nodded. He laid ten 100-dollar notes on the counter and received in return a disappointingly small number of Swiss francs. Stein liked large-denomination money – it simplified his calculations and kept his silk-lined, crocodile-leather wallet from bulging too much.

He followed the driver past the immigration desk and through the crush of people waiting outside the customs hall. There was the white Rolls-Royce, with Swiss registration plates, parked exactly outside the glass doors. The driver was holding the door for him.

‘A new one, Erich?’

‘We just had delivery, sir. The colonel has a new Rolls every five years. Always white, always the same tan upholstery, tinted windows, stereo hi-fi, FM radio and telephone. He still has the Jaguar, of course. He prefers that when he’s driving himself.’ Stein tapped the roof before getting in. ‘When is he going to change over to a Mercedes, Erich?’

‘The colonel would never buy a German car. You know that, Mr Stein. He sent the colour TV back to the shop when he discovered that parts of it were manufactured in Germany.’