by Ross Thomas
“California.”
“Really?”
The dwarf nodded.
“Hollywood? Have you seen Hollywood?”
“I lived there for a while.”
“And the women, Nicolae. Tell me about the women. You would know them all. You always did have luck with women.”
“Beautiful.”
“Ahh.”
“But not as beautiful as in Bucharest in the old days.”
“No, of course not.”
There was a silence as the two men seemed to lapse into reverie. Mircea Ulescu stole a look at the dwarf.
“Nicolae,” he said.
“Yes.”
“I have become a thief.” The confession came out as a hoarse whisper.
“So.”
“Can you imagine it? I, Mircea Ulescu, have turned common thief.”
“Not so common, I’m sure.”
“But still a thief, even though a good one.”
“Well, one must do what one must these days. Tell me, are there many thieves at the camp?”
“It’s a den of them.”
“And what do you steal, Mircea?”
The big man shrugged. “We’re organized into gangs.” He brightened a bit “I’m the leader of mine, of course.”
“Of course.”
“We steal only from the Americans. Cigarettes, gasoline, coffee, Tootsie Rolls.” He frowned. “Can you imagine a conquering nation with a sweet called Tootsie Rolls?”
“The Americans are a strange but wonderful people, Mircea.”
“Yes, I know. Others in the camp steal from the Germans. The Poles especially. The Poles like to beat the Germans up, steal their pigs, and rape their women. But Poles are like that. They think they are justified. We, naturally—my bunch—we steal only from the Americans. And sometimes we do business with them, too.”
“Do you do business mostly with officers or with other ranks?”
“Mostly with officers.”
“I am looking for a certain officer, Mircea. At one time you were a very good policeman. Tell me, are you still?”
“I have not forgotten the old techniques. One does not forget those so easily, Nicolae.”
The dwarf nodded. “You mean the judicious bribe, the suborned witness.”
The big man shrugged again. “Those and others.”
“I was in Frankfurt for only an hour or so before I learned that any documentation that I might need for my stay here could be most readily obtained at the DP camp.”
“Ah, so that’s what you were doing there. You must have been to see Kubista the Czech. He is our best forger.”
“I believe that was his name. Are there a number of forgers in the DP camp?”
“Several, but Kubista is the best.”
“This American officer whom I spoke of. He might have use for the services of a forger. Do you think you might look into that for me, old friend? Find out whether an American officer, possibly a major, has bought himself some documents recently? There would be a little something in it for you, of course.”
“I hesitate because of friendship to ask how much is a little, Nicolae.”
“Shall we say a hundred dollars?”
“Greenbacks?”
“Of course.”
“In advance?”
“Naturally,” the dwarf said, and took out his wallet.
18
The butler wasn’t a very good driver. Or perhaps it was just that he wasn’t too familiar with his employer’s official UNRRA car, an Army-surplus 1941 Ford sedan with a lot of hard miles on it. He stalled frequently, grated the gears, and drove in second most of the time as though unaware of or indifferent to the third gear.
“This afternoon, Herr Doktor,” the butler said over his shoulder to Jackson, “we’ll go to inspect a proper car.”
“Fine,” Jackson said from the back seat of the Ford into which he had been ushered by an imperious gesture from the butler. Jackson wasn’t at all sure why he was being addressed as Herr Doktor, but assumed that it was some fairy tale that the dwarf had spun for the butler’s benefit. He wondered idly whether he was supposed to be a doctor of medicine or or philosophy.
“I described the car yesterday to Herr Direktor.”
“Herr Direktor?”
“The little gentleman.”
“Ah, yes,” Jackson said. “Herr Direktor Ploscaru.”
“It is a rare name for a Swiss.”
“Very rare.”
“But I think it is wonderful for a person with such a handicap as the Herr Direktor’s to achieve so important a position.”
“The best things sometimes come in small packages,” Jackson said, wincing at his own banality.
“How true,” the butler said gravely. “How very, very true.”
There was no more conversation for several blocks. Then the butler said, “I was not always a butler, you understand, Herr Doktor.”
“No?”
“No. Before the war and even during it I was a caterer in Berlin. I had my own firm. We specialized in weddings and—and certain civic affairs.” He sped over the last a bit hastily, Jackson thought.
“Then after the war, when the Americans arrived, I went to work for them in a position that entailed many grave responsibilities.”
“I’m sure.”
“It did not last.”
“What happened?”
“My brother-in-law, whom I had taken into my catering firm and taught the business, denounced me to the Americans for having been a member of the Party. I was discharged and the Americans gave my brother-in-law my job, which was what he had in mind all along.”
“Were you?”
“Please?”
“A member of the Party.”
The butler shrugged. “Naturally. As I said, my firm catered many civic affairs—receptions mostly. To be awarded such affairs, one had to be a member of the Party. It was simply a business proposition. I did not, of course, participate in its activities. I am without politics, and I thought the Party mostly foolishness. But my brother-in-law, on the other hand …” The butler’s voice trailed off.
“What about him?”
“He was very much interested in politics. He tried to join the Party six separate times and was rejected each time—on the ground of emotional instability.” The butler took one hand off the wheel and tapped his right temple significantly. “Ein sonderbarer Kanz.” A queer customer.
“Not quite right, was he?” Jackson said.
“Not quite. I told the Americans this, naturally. It was my duty.”
“Just as it was your brother-in-law’s duty to inform them about you.”
“Exactly. Regulations must be observed, or where would any of us be?”
“Where indeed?”
“Unfortunately, two months later my brother-in-law went berserk and killed the American who had hired him. Strangled him to death. A captain and a very fine fellow, I thought, even though he did dismiss me.”
“You bore the captain no grudge?”
“Certainly not. He was only abiding by the regulations.”
“Maybe if he hadn’t, he’d still be alive.”
The butler turned the idea over in his mind, then shook his head negatively. “It is probably better not to think about such things.”
“Probably,” Jackson said.
Ten minutes later they were at the address that Leah Oppenheimer had given him in Ensenada at a time that now seemed months ago. The butler hastily got out from behind the wheel and hurried around to Jackson’s door as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast because he was at least sixty and seemed to suffer from an arthritic right leg.
“What are you called?” Jackson said as he climbed out.
“Heinrich, Herr Doktor.”
“That’s a pretty bad limp you’ve got, Heinrich.”
“I know. It is arthritis. I was hoping that the Herr Doktor perhaps could give me some advice.”
“Take two aspirin twice a day an
d keep it warm and dry.”
“Thank you very much, Herr Doktor.”
“You’re welcome,” Jackson said, and started for the building in which Leah Oppenheimer. was staying. He noticed that the address was in a block of apartment houses that had suffered only minor damage from the bombing. The stone used to construct them was the dull red Rhenish sandstone that had been used to build much of Frankfurt. Across the street the same stone composed a heap of rubble, which might at one time have formed the twin of the building that he was now entering. Jackson found it strange that bombs could have leveled one block and left the one directly across the street virtually unscathed. He wondered what percentage of Frankfurt had been destroyed: sixty percent, seventy? The ruined sections all looked depressingly the same. Before the war Frankfurt had not been a handsome town. Now it was ugly. Curiously enough, it still looked old, though. Old and ruined and ugly.
The address said that the apartment number was 8. According to the directory in the small foyer, number 8 was occupied by E. Scheel. Jackson started up the stairs and found number 8 on the third floor. He knocked, and the door was opened by a young woman wearing a fur coat. Jackson thought the coat looked expensive.
“Fräulein Scheel?”
“Yes. You must be Mr. Jackson. Please come in.”
“Thank you.”
After entering the apartment, Jackson found himself in a small reception area. Three doors led off it. There was no furniture in the reception area other than a small, very thin Oriental rug. Jackson thought that the rug looked expensive too.
“You will excuse me if I do not offer to take your coat,” Eva Scheel said. “There is no heat today, and I think you will be more comfortable with it on. Leah is just through here.”
She opened a door, and Jackson followed her into a sitting room. By the window facing the street sat Leah Oppenheimer. She wore a belted camel’s-hair coat turned up around her throat. When she saw Jackson, she smiled and held out her hand. Jackson took it, bowing slightly just the way they had taught him to bow all those years ago at that school in Switzerland. You may be almost broke, he told himself, but your manners are still expensive.
With her smile still in place, Leah Oppenheimer said, “So we meet again in yet another country, Mr. Jackson.”
“So it would seem,” he said, wondering whether she had planned the slightly stagey remark beforehand or whether it had just come naturally. He couldn’t quite decide which he preferred. Either way it reminded him of her wretched prose style.
“You have already met my friend, Fräulein Scheel.”
“Yes.”
“Do sit down, Mr. Jackson. Once more, you are just in time for tea,”
Jackson chose a spindly-looking chair upholstered in maroon velvet whose legs ended in serpent’s heads. Each serpent’s mouth was wide open and in it was clutched a glass ball. He noticed that the rest of the furniture in the room was just as awful. Eva Scheel chose a similar chair closer to the tea table.
The Oppenheimer woman made her usual ritual out of serving the tea. “Although we have no heat,” she said, “the electricity was on for two hours just before you came, so we managed to boil some water for tea.”
Because he couldn’t think of anything else to say, Jackson said that that was nice.
“Remember those delicious little cakes that we had in the hotel in Mexico, Mr. Jackson?”
Jackson said he remembered.
“Well, I’m afraid we’ll have none of those or anything like them this time because of my stupidity. It would have been so easy for me to bring some things from Mexico City. But fortunately, Fräulein Scheel has come up with a solution.”
Jackson couldn’t bring himself to ask what the solution was, so he merely smiled in what he hoped was a polite and interested way.
“The solution,” Eva Scheel said in a dry tone, “consists of some delicately sliced sweets called Milky Ways, courtesy of the American Army.”
“Eva has an American friend, a young officer,” Leah said, handing Jackson his cup of tea. “He seems like a very nice young man. I met him last night. His name is Meyer. Lieutenant Meyer.”
Over the rim of his cup, Jackson eyed Eva Scheel with new interest. Well, what have we here? he wondered. A nice little German girl dying to get to America, or something else? Something else, he decided after trying to visualize Eva Scheel in bed with Lieutenant Meyer, which was a game he often played. For some reason, the Scheel-Meyer combination just didn’t work. He also had to decide quickly whether to mention that he had already met Lieutenant Meyer. If you don’t, it’ll be a silent lie that could complicate things. One of Jackson’s few personal rules was never to lie if the truth would do.
“Would that be Lieutenant LaFollette Meyer from Milwaukee?” he said, and hoped that the smile on his face was a winning one.
“Do you know him?” Leah said.
“We met yesterday at the airport. Lieutenant Meyer is very much interested in your brother—in an official sort of way.”
Leah Oppenheimer nodded sadly. “Yes, I know. He had many questions for me last night, most of which I could not answer. Isn’t it terrible—all those people?”
“You mean the dead ones?”
“Yes.”
“That your brother’s killed?”
“I did not know. During the war I knew that he had to do awful things. But now …” She shook her head. “He must be terribly ill. That’s why we must find him, Mr. Jackson: so that we can get him proper medical treatment.”
She was lying, Jackson realized, about not having known that her brother was something more than a harmless scamp, but he decided to let it pass because, again, it was simpler that way.
“You think they’ll let you do that?” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“There are three governments looking for your brother—the Americans, the British, and the Russians—or so I’ve been told: about the Russians, I mean. What I’m saying is do you think that they’ll simply let you spirit your brother away to some nice quiet sanitarium and then forget about all those people he’s killed?”
Eva Scheel rose, picked up a plate, and offered it to Jackson. “Have some Milky Ways, Mr. Jackson; they really go quite nicely with tea.”
The candy bars had been sliced into quarter-inch-thick pieces and arranged with a great deal of care on the plate. Although Jackson wasn’t overly fond of candy, he took one, smiled his thanks, and popped it into his mouth. She’s giving her friend time to think, he thought as he watched Eva Scheel put the plate back on the table, resume her seat, and start stroking the collar of her fur coat as though she found it comforting.
“The Russians,” Leah said in almost a whisper. “I did not know about the Russians.” She looked at Jackson and then at Eva Scheel. “Why would the Russians …?” She didn’t finish her question.
Eva Scheel shrugged and looked at Jackson. “Perhaps Mr. Jackson would know.”
“I can only guess,” he said.
Leah nodded. “Please.”
“Oil.”
“Oil?”
“And politics. In the Middle East or Near East or whatever you want to call it, they’re all mixed up. The United States doesn’t have any Middle East policy—at least, none that’s discernible. The Russian policy is quite obvious. They want to move the British out so they can move in. Right now they’re tilting toward the Arabs, because they’re smart enough to realize that you can’t be at odds with the Arabs in Palestine without its reverberating throughout the rest of the Moslem world—and that means Saudi Arabia and Bengal and Malaya and North Africa and the Dardanelles; not to mention those sections of Russia which are also Islamic. Your brother, ill or not, is a very good killer. The Russians could drop him in almost any place where things are in a state of flux—Iran, for example, or Iraq—and if your brother took out just the right person or persons, then the resulting mess could be all the excuse that the Russians would need to move in.”
“What an interesting th
eory,” Eva Scheel said with a smile that was almost polite. “A bit farfetched, but interesting.”
“Then there’s Palestine,” Jackson said.
“What about Palestine?” Eva Scheel said.
Jackson looked at Leah Oppenheimer. “Your brother’s politics are a bit strange. Do you think he’s still a Communist?”
She shook her head. “I have no way of knowing.”
“Let’s say that he is. Let’s even say, for the sake of argument, that he’s the fervent kind. Now suppose the Russians were able to hand the Palestinians a top-notch killer who was also a renegade Jew who could pass as an American or an Englishman—or a German refugee. Don’t you think the Palestinians might make good use of him—perhaps even infiltrate him into the Irgun or the Stern Group?”
Leah Oppenheimer shook her head vigorously. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it?”
“My brother could never be anyone’s paid assassin.”
“Nobody really knows what your brother is—or what he could be, given sufficient incentive. Right now he’s killing bad Germans, or thinks he is. I don’t really think that bothers the Americans or the British or the Russians too much, not as long as he just keeps on killing those who’re really rotten. But there’s no percentage in it—at least, not for the Russians or the Americans or the British. Right now his talents, such as they are, are being wasted. Any one of the three could use him somewhere else—and right now the Middle East seems the most likely spot.”
“I’m surprised that you included the Americans, Mr. Jackson,” Eva Scheel said.
“Why?”
“I thought they would be too—well, pure.”
“We lost our purity during the war. Like virginity, once you lose it, you never get it back.”
“Do many people find your flippancy as offensive as I do?”