Trojan Gold (9 page)

Schmidt sighed. “Coffee.”

“Coffee,” I agreed.

When I came back from the kitchen with a fresh pot and an extra cup, Schmidt was looking at the snapshots. His mustache was twitching with pleasure. Schmidt loves looking at snapshots. He also loves having his picture taken. If he is anywhere in the vicinity when a photographer is at work, the finished product will have Schmidt or part of him somewhere in the background.

“You have not shown me these,” he said indignantly.

“I had forgotten about them.” I sat down on the couch beside him. “I took them at the ISSAMA meetings last winter.”

“I had deduced as much,” said Schmidt, contemplating a photo of Tony, who was pointing, in the idiotic way people do, at the Zugspitze. “It is not good of Tony. He looks drunk.”

“It was cold. That's why his nose is so red.”

“Ha,” said Schmidt skeptically. “Oho, here is Elise. I have not seen her for two years. She should not make her hair that strange shade of pink.”

So it went, with Schmidt making catty remarks about his friends. Schmidt knows everybody and he adores conferences; he had been sick in bed with flu that year, or he would have insisted on going along. I expected his encyclopedic memory would
falter when it came to Jan, but I was in error.

“Perlmutter,” he announced. “Bode Museum, East Berlin.”

“Very good, Schmidt.”

“I have an excellent memory for faces,” Schmidt said, twirling his mustache complacently. “I have met this Perlmutter only once, but never do I forget a face. It was in Dresden; he studied then under Kammer. Young, he is, but brilliant, it is said. Hmmm. Now who…”

Frowning slightly, he studied the last of the snapshots. I said casually, “Oh, that's just the hotel where I stayed.”

“But who is this fellow? Wait, no, don't tell me; I will remember in a moment. I never forget a face.”

“You've never seen this face. It's the owner of the hotel.”

“He looks familiar,” said Schmidt.

“He does not. Come on, Schmidt, you've already scored, don't overdo it.”

“I have seen him. I know I have seen that face somewhere. But I do not remember the hotel. In Garmisch, you say?”

“Uh—yes, that's right.”

“What is his name, this man?”

“Hoffman.”

“Hoffman…Yes, there is something familiar….”

I thought he was showing off. If I had known he was telling the simple truth, I'd have changed the subject even faster than I did.

 

Schmidt wouldn't go home. After polite hints had failed, I told him point-blank I was tired and wanted to hit the sack. He waved my complaint aside. “It is a holiday tomorrow; you can sleep late.”

“What holiday?”

“I have declared it,” said Schmidt, giggling. “For me. I must do my Christmas shopping. I am the director; I can make a holiday when I want. I make it for you, too, if you are nice. We will go to shop at the Kristkindlmarkt.”

“Depends on the weather,” I said. “I feel a little snuffly tonight; the cold I mentioned—”

“Fresh air is good for a cold,” said Schmidt. “Now let us open a bottle of wine and look at more photographs. Where are the ones you took of me at the Oktoberfest?”

I had not intended to take pictures of Schmidt at the Oktoberfest. I had intended to get an overall view of that giddiest and most vulgar of Munich holidays, not only for my own scrapbook, but to send home in the hope it would encourage my brother Bob to pay me a visit. Since my mother would see the pictures too, a certain amount of discretion was necessary; the snapshots had to be vulgar enough to entice Bob and restrained enough not to scandalize my mother. I never sent the photos. Schmidt was in every damned one of them. I believe his aim was to demonstrate the variety of things that can be done with a stein of beer—in addition, of course, to drinking from it.

I did not open a bottle of wine. At midnight Schmidt switched from coffee to Coke and demanded more snapshots.

At twelve-fifteen the telephone rang. This prompted a ribald comment from Schmidt, which I ignored. Some of my friends have no idea of time, but I had a premonition about the identity of this caller; and I was right.

“I understand you telephoned earlier,” said John brightly.

“I didn't leave a message.”

“My heart told me it was you.”

“Your heart, and the fact that you never bothered to tell me—” I bit my lip. The cold fury in my voice had aroused the interest of my inquisitive boss; he turned to stare and I moderated my tone. “So what's new?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“
Nihil, niente, nichts
. No rumors, no information, no news. If the subject we discussed earlier has aroused interest, it is not in the quarters with which I am—was—familiar.”

“You're sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“It didn't take you long.”

“Efficiency is my most admirable characteristic.”

“You have so few of them.”

A chuckle from John and a more intense stare from Schmidt reminded me to control my temper and my tongue.

“My, my, what a sour mood we're in,” said the jeering voice at the other end of the line. “I didn't expect gratitude, but you ought to be relieved at the absence of activity.”

Since I could not think of a reply that would not further arouse Schmidt's suspicions, I remained si
lent. After a moment, John said, “Do forgive me, I neglected to inquire whether you had a guest.”

“I do.”

“Tony? Dieter? Tom, Dick—”

“Schmidt,” I said between my teeth.

“Who is it?” Schmidt demanded. “Is it someone I know? Does he wish to speak with me?”

“Shut up, Schmidt,” I said.

“Perhaps I had better ask leading questions,” John said.

“Why bother?”

“Tit for tat. Have there been any new developments?”

“No.”

“Hmmm,” said John.

“You said you weren't interested.”

“Not under any circumstances whatever. I cannot conceive of any contingency that would persuade me.”

“Then you have no need to know.”

“Er—quite. Look here, suppose I ring you tomorrow. A late report may yet come in.”

“Who was that?” Schmidt demanded as I hung up.

“A friend of mine.”

“You did not sound very friendly,” said Schmidt.

Schmidt finally left at about one-thirty. As I pushed him out into the night he called, “I will telephone you at nine o'clock. We must get an early start.”

I nodded agreeably. At nine the next morning I expected to be halfway to Garmisch.

A
T NINE O'CLOCK
I
WAS JUST LEAVING
M
UNICH
. I had overslept. I figured Schmidt had probably done the same, so I wasn't worried about his following me. I was worried about two other people.

I lost more time taking a roundabout route through the suburbs instead of heading directly for the autobahn. The sun was trying to break through clustering clouds, but the side streets were slick with packed snow. I had to concentrate on my driving and try, at the same time, to keep an eye on the rearview mirror.

I didn't expect to have any difficulty spotting Dieter. He was such a ham he wouldn't be able to resist some silly trick. Having observed no bright purple Beetles painted with vulgar mottoes (Dieter's last-owned car) or vehicles driven by gorillas or mummies, I turned onto the autobahn and put my foot down. The suggested speed limit is 130 kilometers per hour, but nobody pays much attention to it; I got in the (comparatively) slow lane and gave myself up to introspection.

Painful introspection. I wasn't too pleased with myself. There is nothing wrong with having a positive self-image, but when self-esteem blossoms into conceit, it is apt to cloud one's judgment.

Whether the photograph was a hoax or a swindle or a sales pitch, it was reasonable to assume the sender would not limit himself to a single sucker. Until the previous day, I hadn't been able to pinpoint a particular group of prospects; but I should have made some phone calls to colleagues and asked whether they had received anything unusual in the mail.

On the other hand, nobody had telephoned me either. That made me feel a little less culpable. Either I was the only one Hoffman had contacted or the others were being devious—like me.

Schmidt it was who said it: “If there is the slightest chance…” The acquisition of the gold of Troy would be the museum coup of the century. Well, maybe not the century—there have been others—but a coup of mythical proportions. We're no nobler than anybody else. We talk about cooperation and mutual assistance in the lofty name of scholarship, but let some prize come on the market and we're in the arena with knives swinging. Competition stops short of assassination, but not by much. I could tell you some stories….

It was hard to avoid the conclusion that Hoffman had communicated with the others. They might even have information I lacked—a return address that had not been obliterated, a note or covering letter of which I had been deprived by Gerda's interfering nosiness. They were behaving precisely as
I would have expected if such a contingency had occurred.

Dieter would be intrigued and amused, and perfectly willing to spend a few days on a possible wild-goose chase, so long as the geese were nesting in one of his favorite vacation spots. Tony would call me on some pretense and wait to see if I would mention the peculiar photograph I had received from that dear old gentleman at the Gasthaus Hexenhut. My failure to do so would persuade him I was up to my old tricks, trying to track down a prize without cutting him in on the deal. Our first treasure hunt had begun with a challenge: “I'm smarter than you are and I'll prove it.” I had no reason to suppose he had become any less competitive.

Jan was an East German. My vague notions of satellite politics had convinced me that half the people in Eastern Europe worked for the KGB, if that's what they call it these days. He would have a stronger motive than any of us to locate the gold. If the Soviets didn't have it, their poor little feelings must have been badly wounded by the suspicions of the world; it would be a nice publicity ploy for them to rescue it and return it—to Jan's museum, where else?

So far, I hadn't seen hide nor hair of either of the women. That didn't mean they weren't around. It also didn't mean they were. Elise was not the world's brightest little lady, for all her academic qualifications, and her specialty was Renaissance sculpture; of all the group, she would be least likely to recognize or respond to the Trojan gold. Rosa was brilliant, but utterly devoid of imagination. I
could see her glancing at the photograph and tossing it aside as just another crank communication.

There was only one jarring note in my composition. I simply could not see that gracious, kindly old gentleman as either a practical joker or a seller of stolen goods. That was why I was on my way to Bad Steinbach to confront him personally instead of calling or writing.

Still no purple Beetles in the mirror. Nor a sleek black BMW. If John intended to follow me, he wouldn't use a car I might recognize….

One might reasonably ask why, since I had taken the trouble to locate John, I was now so determined to avoid him. I asked myself the same thing, and I knew the answer, even though I hated to admit it.

Putting that insane advertisement in the newspapers had been tantamount to yelling, “Anybody down there?” into the depths of the Grand Canyon. I had not really expected a response. In a way, I had not really wanted one.

Why do people have a hopeless need to glamorize things and people? It was impossible to turn John into a romantic hero when he was on the scene; he simply refused to behave like one. He was always making silly remarks or setting up a situation in which he looked like a fool. He could move fast enough and hit hard enough when he had to, and he could think even faster, but my most vivid memories of him were memories of deliberate foolishness. The only pure, unmarred memory was the last, when, stripped and sleek and deadly, he went over the side of that leaking boat into the icy water and risked his neck for someone else.

If he had never turned up again, I could have
cherished that image and worked it into something beautiful. Or if he had come rushing to my side murmuring clichés—“I tried to forget you—I tried to stay away—It was for your sake, my dearest, I'm not worthy to black your boots—but I couldn't resist you, your image has been enshrined in my heart…” Hell, I could invent page after page of dialogue like that. So could John.

Instead he had popped out of nothingness like a demon in a horror movie, shocked me into a coma, pinched my bottom, handled me with the tolerant amusement of a man who had rediscovered some forgotten trinket—a toy he had enjoyed playing with once upon a time…. And he had turned me down flat when I asked for his help. Let's not forget that. He had turned me down. If he had had second thoughts, it was for reasons of his own, and that possibility made me very uneasy. I didn't believe his claims of virtue and respectability for a moment. He was still a crook, and a crook was the last thing I needed.

I was startled out of my sullen meditations when a car whizzed contemptuously past me and cut back into my lane so sharply that it grazed my left front fender. The driver was a little old lady with blue hair; she made a remarkably rude gesture at me as she went by. After that I concentrated on driving.

The streets of Garmisch were full of vacationers, winter-sports fans, and cows. The cows are part of the local color, and they have the right of way. They were not the only distractions; the shop windows bulged with goodies, including some gorgeous ski and après-ski costumes. I managed to get
through the town without incident, bovine or otherwise, and took the road to Bad Steinbach.

The highway climbed steadily up into the foot-hills, passing through pine-shrouded shadows and out again into the sunlight of open meadows frosted with white. The sky ahead was a deep pure blue, framing the majestic outlines of the snow-capped Alpine peaks. I wished my mood matched the serenity of the scenery; the closer I got to Bad Steinbach, the more my vague sense of apprehension deepened.

The village huddles on a few acres of level ground, with the high hills enclosing it like a rampart. Some of the streets leading off the central square go up at a thirty-degree angle, and outlying houses cling precariously to the slopes. The roads that give access to them looked like tangled white ribbons against the deep green of the pine-covered hills. A broader panel of snow slashed across the side of the Hexenhut—the ski slope, one of the trickiest in the area because of the trees bordering it so narrowly. A lift operates from the station behind the hotel; I could see a bright car swinging in its ascent as I pulled into a parking place near the central fountain, with its oversized statue of Saint Emmeram. The fountain was dry now, and a fringe of icicles lengthened the saint's beard.

(In case you are interested—and I can't imagine why you should be—Emmeram was one of the first missionaries to the heathen Bavarians. He died in 715 or thereabouts.)

Most Bavarian villages look as if they had been designed for a production of
Babes in Toyland
. The Marktplatz of Bad Steinbach is no exception. On
one side the serene, austere facade of the St. Michaelskirche gives no hint of the baroque fantasies within. The two adjoining sides are lined with houses and shops, fairytale quaint with their wooden balconies and painted fronts. Some of the balconies were draped with bright red geraniums, and I gaped at them for a moment until I realized they must be plastic. Facing the church, on the fourth side of the square, is the hotel. The only discordant note is the town parking lot, but it has to be there because they'd have had to blast out a piece of the mountain to get any more level ground.

In the summer, there are tables and bright umbrellas outside the hotel restaurant and the cafés. At least I assume there were, since that is the custom; I had never visited the village in the summer. There were no tables outside that day. However, the restaurant appeared to be doing good business, to judge by the people passing in and out.

Like the English, the Bavarians eat all the time. Unlike the English, they have not invented separate names for their various snack times; instead of elevenses and teatime and whatever, they refer to all of them as
Brotzeit
. It was just past 11
A.M.
A reasonable time for
Brotzeit
.

The first thing I noticed was that the lobby had been modernized—not extensively, just enough to add a few jarring notes to what had been a charming period ambiance. There was a souvenir counter with racks of cheap beer steins and dolls dressed in Bavarian costume and pillows embroidered with mottoes like “I did it in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.” The old wooden registration desk had been replaced by a shiny plastic structure. Hoffman wasn't
on duty. The man behind the counter was someone I had not seen before—young and heavy-set, inappropriately attired in a short-sleeved gaudy print shirt. I didn't linger but went straight through into the restaurant.

It had undergone a similar transformation. The tables were more numerous and closer together, and each one boasted a vase of tacky plastic rosebuds. The bar was a modern monstrosity, frosted glass blocks with colored lights behind them.

Eventually one of the waitresses made it to my table. She was squashed into one of those Salzburger dirndls that you're supposed to buy several sizes smaller than your actual measurements. They are fastened across the midriff with hooks as stout as industrial steel, and the excess flesh thus ruthlessly compressed billows up over the low-cut bodice into the cute little white blouse, and sometimes beyond. When she bent over to ask for my order, I was reminded of a scene from one of my favorite movies—when Walter Matthau, confronted by a similar exhibition, screams, his eyes bulging, “Don't let them out! Don't let them out!”

They didn't get out. I ordered beer and examined the menu the girl had given me. The featured item was something called a Bavarian burger—ground veal and sauerkraut on a bun.

The omens were not auspicious. I had hoped I'd find Herr Hoffman in his usual place behind the desk. He might be elsewhere in the hotel or the village—or the world—but the implications of that bloodstained envelope were getting harder to deny. The refined old gentleman I had known would
never have countenanced such vulgarities as plastic rosebuds and souvenir cushions.

I drank my beer and tried to figure out what to do next. There would be nothing unusual in my asking for Hoffman; anyone who had stayed at the hotel would remember him and he had been particularly kind to me. If my forebodings were mistaken, and I devoutly prayed they were, I would simply show him the photograph and ask him what it was all about.

If Hoffman was out of the picture, permanently or temporarily, it might be Frau Hoffman whom I would confront. I had never met her, but I assumed the woman wearing Helen's jewels must be she; she was the right age, at any rate. I couldn't think of any reason why I should not be equally candid with her. She was obviously in her husband's confidence.

If I asked for the manager and found myself facing a total stranger…Play it by ear? I keep thinking I'm good at that, even though events have often proved me mistaken. In this case there wasn't much else I could do. I paid my check and went back to the lobby.

The concierge behind the counter kept me waiting while he answered the phone and made busy work with piles of papers. He kept glancing at me out of the corner of his eye to see if I was impressed. At close range, I understood why he was shivering in short sleeves; every move he made was shivering in short sleeves; every move he made was designed to show off his muscles. Biceps bulged, pectorals popped, and everything else undulated. He had tousled his brown hair in deliberate imitation of a popular American movie star, and his
full lips were set in a pout derived from the same source. After he had snapped at the girl at the switchboard, for no reason I could see, he turned to me with what he obviously believed was an ingratiating smile.

“Your pardon, Fräulein; we are very busy today.”

Full pink lips and exaggerated pectorals happen to be the two male characteristics I most abhor. I didn't hold them against him; what I held against him was the smirk on his face as he looked me over.

“Are you?” I said.

“You wish a room? We are booked, but perhaps there will be a cancellation….”