Len Deighton - XPD

Madame Mauring fussed with the coffee things, looked at the two men, and then left without speaking. ‘She’s all right,’ said Stein in reply to Pitman’s unasked question. ‘She’s always been grateful to us for letting her have the lease.’

‘What shall we do, Charles?’ Sometimes it was Corporal, but now it was Charles.

‘Get out of this store, then get out of this town, then get out of this country.’

‘I would hate leaving my house,’ the colonel said. It was easy for Stein, he was comparatively young and fit and still had everything he would need to settle down in some new environment and start a new life. But Colonel Pitman did not want to leave this place. He liked to be near the doctor he trusted, with the servants he liked and in a house he had grown to love. ‘Must I go too, Charles?’

‘I think you should, Colonel.’

‘What about your son Billy?’ said Pitman. He fidgeted with the papers as he looked at them. It was damnable when a man needed a good cigar and a large brandy and could not have them.

‘I told that shmendrick the British sent to see me in LA,’ said Stein. ‘Them holding Billy don’t cut any ice with me. If I give them these papers, we’ve got nothing to bargain with. I told them I’ll get lawyers and fight for Billy through the State Department. That’s the only language these government bastards understand. I told him that if they didn’t release Billy, I’d give xeroxes of all this junk to Stern magazine and the Washington Post , making it a condition that they campaign for Billy’s release.’

‘My God, but you’ re a hard man,’ said Pitman.

‘It’s logical,’ said Stein.

Pitman nodded. It was logical, but how many men would be able to make such a decision about their son? Perhaps that’s what leadership was. Perhaps leadership was asking people to do things the hard way, simply because that was the way you were prepared to act yourself. Pitman chided himself that he had never been prepared to do anything the hard way.

‘There was a man tailing me,’ said Stein, ‘the Brits I guess. How do you like that; the sons of bitches had a man tailing me. He was on the plane too.’

‘Did he follow you here?’ said Pitman nervously.

‘Nah! I changed planes in Paris. I got rid of him at the airport. You stay in the toilet long enough, the guy following you will eventually come in, to check up. Some tough kid I used to know in New York City told me that. I waited for him, and beat him senseless.’

‘You did what?’

‘I slugged him. I put him inside the toilet and set the latch to show it was in use. The cleaners will find him.’

Pitman shuddered. ‘I’ll drive you to the airport, Chuck.’ Then Pitman said, ‘How do you know he was someone the British sent?’

‘Who else would have sent him?’

Pitman nodded. ‘I’ll drive you to the airport, Charles. Then I’ll take the car across the border into France. There is a hotel on Lake Annecy where I go sometimes. I could stay there for a few days until it’s blown over.’

‘It’s not going to blow over, Colonel. We’re fighting City Hall, don’t you see that? The Brits and the Krauts both want the Hitler Minutes. If we don’t let them have them, they’ll blow us away. But if we do let them have them, they’ll also blow us away.’

‘I’m too old to run, Charles,’ said the colonel. ‘Too old and too exhausted. When you get to my age, nothing matters any more; the whole damned world becomes boring, like a movie you sat through too many times.’

‘Where’s your car?’ said Stein. ‘We’ve got to get going.’

By the time Kleiber had shown his friend the house, the guns and equipment Breslow was hungry. The men had not eaten lunch. Breslow sniffed the air hoping that a meal was being prepared for them but there was no sign of it. Kleiber seemed to be able to miss meals without noticing but Max Breslow liked good food served punctually, as it was at home. He decided that he must go and eat, preferably without his friend Kleiber.

Breslow respected Willi Kleiber. He had been a tough, honest soldier who could hold his drink, go days on end without sleep and who was never heard to complain. And yet Breslow’s respect for Kleiber fell far short of admiration. Kleiber’s avowed enjoyment of army life had in peacetime been replaced by his pleasure in hunting and camping trips, always in the hardest and bleakest of environments. Kleiber liked shaving in cold water by the light of a gas lamp at four o’clock in the morning inside some icy-cold tent in some god-forsaken part of the world, with the prospect of wading for hours in a cold swamp to shoot a few wretched ducks. Such strenuous pursuit of discomfort seemed childish to Breslow, and he made sure that he did not join such expeditions.

For all these reasons, Breslow was determined not to accept the spartan accommodation that Kleiber had prepared at the house on the lake shore. Breslow had been taken to inspect the bleak little uncarpeted room at the top of the house. The folding bed covered with two thin blankets and a threadbare cushion to be used as a pillow was not to Breslow’s taste, neither was the chilly bathroom which was one flight of stairs and a long draughty corridor away.

Kleiber was disappointed when Breslow told him that he had already booked a suite at a luxurious downtown hotel. He had keenly looked forward to an evening of cigar smoke and schnapps, as they swapped stories about life at the Führerhauptquartier or discussed intimate details about Kleiber’s latest mistress. He had even put a bottle on ice and bought a box of hand-rolled Havanas from the duty-free shop at the airport.

Max Breslow relented a little. ‘I’ll have a bath and some dinner and come back for a drink,’ he finally offered his friend.

‘That’s good,’ said Kleiber, his disappointment changing suddenly to manifest pleasure. ‘I’ll drink you under the table, Max. Be warned.’

Breslow managed a brave smile, although he dreaded the prospect of such an evening. ‘I mustn’t be too late to bed,’ he mumbled.

‘Nonsense,’ said Kleiber, patting his friend on the back. ‘A Saturday evening in August with the whole town waiting for us-how can you talk of going to bed early? We’ll probably end up in that new striptease club I was telling you about, or we could go across the border to Evian and try our luck at the casino. Or, if it’s girls you are in the mood for… ’

It was difficult to counter Kleiber’s persuasive ebullience. ‘I don’t know how you do it, Willi. I really do not.’

Kleiber straightened himself to his full height and smiled to show his pleasure. It was easy to compliment him, thought Max Breslow-one had only to imply that he was a libertine or a rogue to earn his eternal approval.

‘Meet me here at 8.30,’ suggested Kleiber. ‘It will give you time for your preening, and give me time to win a new client. If the new job is what I think it is, Max, the evening is on me.’

‘Something good?’

‘When a man calls long distance every thirty minutes and says he needs to speak to me concerning a matter of great importance, it usually turns out that his wife is jumping into bed with his chauffeur.’

‘Does it, Willi?’

‘Or that his mistress is jumping into bed with his chauffeur,’ said Kleiber. ‘The more they make it sound like if s a matter of international diplomacy, the more certain I become that it’s a little domestic drama.’

‘I didn’t know your company took on such domestic dramas nowadays.’

Willi smiled again. ‘My staff are very highly paid. They don’t mind if they are guarding the President or recording the whispers of an insatiable wife, and why should they mind? I tell these clients that using my organization will cost them ten times what a small company specializing in divorce would charge. They don’t care, Max. They want to pay more. The elemental fury of vengeance motivates these people; they want to hurt, they want to humble, they want to assault the one who has caused them pain. Lacking the physique or the skills or the temperament to do it directly, they use the only weapon they have-money! They pay, Max, because they want to pay.’ He smacked a fist into an open hand to illustrate the similarity between the act of violence and of payment. ‘Yes, I’ll take on a domestic drama.’