Len Deighton - XPD

‘If he stole your papers,’ said Billy, ‘if he stole them and then didn’t pay you the money you need… ’ He tugged on the gold chain round his neck, and tightened his fist in anger. ‘I’d take that old Mauser pistol you brought home from Germany and blow him away.’

‘Now, now, Billy.’

‘You think I couldn’t do it, dad. You’re wrong. I took that old gun out into the desert last year and spent a little time learning how to handle it. That’s a wonderful pistol, that Mauser. You should see what I can do to a row of cans… ’

‘Breslow ain’t going to stand around like a row of tin cans, Billy. You forget any idea of rough stuff. I don’t even like to hear you talk that way. What would momma have said if she’d lived to hear her son talking like some cheap hoodlum?’

‘OK, dad, but what are you going to do to make sure he doesn’t rip us off?’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking of that, Billy. First, you’ve got to understand how much trouble we’ve gone to in order to prevent Breslow finding out where the files and papers and everything are hidden. It’s essential that we keep the location a secret from him and from anyone associated with him. And that goes double for that Brit!’

‘I forgot that you met the Brit. What was he like?’

‘You missed something, Billy,’ said Stein. He drained the last of the tea into his cup and then waved the teapot lid at the waitress to get more. ‘Boyd Stuart, he calls himself. What kind of faggot name is that? But he’s no faggot when it comes to weighing in; two hundred pounds at least, and I’d guess he knows how to handle himself, and never mind the fancy accent. About forty years old… the sort of face that makes it difficult to guess the age. Cunning! You could see it in his eyes.’

‘Sounds as if you like him even less than you like Breslow,’ said Billy Stein, who had long since grown used to his father’s extreme and unpredictable passions about the people he met.

‘Too Aryan for me,’ said Charles Stein. ‘I saw too many guys like him striding around in the POW cages with SS flashes on their collars.’

‘Did you ever stop to think, dad, that maybe… ’

‘I’m a racist,’ Charles Stein completed the sentence. He took one of the hot towels that the waitress had brought along with a fresh pot of jasmine tea and, lowering his head, buried his face in it for what seemed a long time. Billy Stein looked to see if the wonderful girl was watching his father’s ablutions and was relieved to see that she was giving all her attention to a plate of roast duck. ‘Yeah, I’m a racist,’ said Stein, emerging happily from the towel like a walrus surfacing for a fresh herring. ‘And it’s too late to change me now, Billy, so we’ve both got to put up with it.’

Billy nodded and retied the lace of his high boot.

‘Ideally,’ said Charles Stein, ‘we have to get photocopies, microfilm, microfiche or whatever the hell it’s called. Then we could show what we’ve got to any of these people, and still have the originals locked away and hidden.’

‘So why not?’ said Billy.

‘Sometimes I worry about you, Billy. Sometimes I wonder what is going to happen to all the stocks and the business investments and the nice little deal we got with that insurance broker in St Louis… Sometimes I wonder what is going to happen to all that when I finally take up my option on that small piece to turf we bought in Forest Lawn.’

‘Jesus, dad, don’t talk about that.’

Stein was mollified by his son’s horror at the prospect of losing him. ‘We can’t get that stuff microfilmed,’ he said, ‘because it would attract too much attention. Ask yourself how we’d go about it. We can’t just find some microfilm outfit in the yellow pages without a good chance they would blow the whistle on us as soon as they see what the stuff is all about.’

‘Buy a microfilm machine,’ said Billy. ‘What can it cost? A grand? Five grand? Not ten grand; and even that would be worth it when we are playing for the kind of telephone numbers you keep talking about. What did Breslow say-a hundred million dollars?’

‘No, it was me who said a hundred million dollars. Breslow played it all very close.’ He poured more tea. Billy put his hand over his cup to show he had had enough of it. ‘And who’d work the machine? Could you work it? Could I work it? No, it needs training to operate a thing like that.’

Charles Stein succumbed to the temptation of the last of the chicken noodles. There was a trace of scrambled egg-a bright yellow cushion under a sliver of chicken meat and a sauce-encrusted shrimp tail, the whole ensnared in a loop of fresh noodle. Chuck Stein levered his china spoon underneath and dashed a trace of soy upon it before savouring the combination.

He closed his eyes with pleasure. Only after he had swallowed it did he speak again. ‘You know I’m the only person who has been through all those documents. Colonel Pitman can’t read German-his French is OK but no German-and the other boys from the battalion don’t give a damn.’

‘It’s not something that interests me a great deal,’ said Billy, apologetically. ‘I read all those war books you used to bring home and tell me I ought to read, but it doesn’t grab me.’ Billy stole another glance at the girl. ‘If I was to tell you the honest truth, dad, I don’t even understand who won the war, or even who was fighting it.’ He looked at his father hoping that an explanation would be offered.

‘Yeah, well it’s easy,’ said Stein. ‘Hitler started killing the Jews, so the Jews came to America and built an atomic bomb so President Roosevelt could help them, but he dropped it on the Japanese.’

‘I never know when you’re kidding, dad.’

‘I’m never kidding,’ said Stein; he leant across the table. His sleeve went into the soy but he did not notice. ‘These documents are dynamite; you’d better understand that. If this English cat knows that I’ve been telling you what’s in these documents-all this stuff about Churchill talking with Hitler and offering him a sweet deal for a quick peace… well, he might get his orders.’

‘What do you mean?’

Stein glanced around the room, and then whispered, even though there was no one within earshot. ‘What I’m trying to tell you, Billy, is that the Brits might have already decided to destroy these documents, and rub out anyone who knows about them.’

‘Dad, no.’

‘And they’d be crazy to go to that extreme and leave alive some kid whose father has told him everything that’s in them. I mean, those Brits are not going to know that it just goes in one of your ears and comes out the other, Billy. They are going to think you are a bright lad who listens to what his dad tells him. Right?’

‘Oh, come on, dad.’ Billy smiled and waited for his father to smile too, but Charles Stein did not smile. He was serious.

‘Ask yourself what you would do in their position,’ said Charles Stein calmly. ‘If you were the British Prime Minister and wanted to keep the memory of Sir Winston highly polished, what would you do?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Billy. Now his attention was no longer diverted by anything around him.

‘Suppose it was Abe Lincoln,’ persisted Charles Stein. ‘Suppose a couple of lousy Brits were sitting in Liverpool with a carload of stuff that proved that Abe Lincoln was a pantywaist who sent a message of congratulation to Stonewall Jackson after the Battle of Bull Run. You think the CIA would wait two minutes before taking off after those Brits with no holds barred? You think that they would let the lives of a couple of blackmailers-that’s the way they would see it, Billy, blackmailers-get in the way, if Abe Lincoln’s memory was going to be sullied and the USA made into a laughing stock all over the world?’