XPD (24 page)

Jerry Delaney’s place was a topless-bottomless club which contravened the regulations of most cities in Los Angeles county, as well as violating specific rules of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Department which licenses the bars. But this was Lennox, an unincorporated area on the way to Los Angeles International airport, where anything goes. At Jerry Delaney’s Gnu Club you could lay a bet or a broad; snort, smoke or mainline the stuff that Jerry brought in from Mexico and places beyond.

Jerry Delaney’s share of the Kaiseroda money had all been put into this two-storey building marked by a smart yellow awning and a bedraggled palm tree. A huge oak desk dominated his large upstairs office, and around it were placed deep leather armchairs of the sort associated with exclusive men’s clubs. On the desk there were three telephones in different colours, a large gold-plated pen set and a pair of baby shoes encased in a large block of transparent plastic. Soft music came from some hidden loudspeaker. Jerry Delaney pressed a switch and the music stopped. ‘Want to dunk that knuckle in some rubbing alcohol?’ He went to a large mirrored drinks cabinet and got two glasses.

‘Wine for me, Jerry, please.’

Jerry Delaney poured a glass of white California wine for each of them. The evening was still young, and a nightclub owner needed a clear head in this part of town. ‘It’s good to see you, Chuck. I got what you asked for.’ He put his hand against the side of the bottle to test the temperature and then, deciding it was not cold enough, tossed a couple of ice cubes into each glass.

He turned to find Stein staring at the framed photographs. They covered the wall behind his desk to the point of almost obliterating the red plush wallpaper. There were dozens of photos there, most of them of the type favoured by restaurateurs and club owners. Harsh flashlight froze Delaney and some of his more famous clients into awkward poses: leaning precariously across dining tables, holding the inevitable glass of champagne aloft and staring at the camera with a fixed and desperate smile.

But Stein was not studying any of the pictures taken in the Gnu Club. He was looking at a shiny signals corps glossy 8 x 10 inch photo of a mud-spattered M-3; a half-track vehicle mounting a 75-mm artillery piece. Ranged in front of it was a group of men in woollen shirts and gaitered trousers that so suited the rainy Tunisian winter. Behind the ‘tank destroyer’ there were some houses and a cluster of palms bent to conform to the prevailing winds. Stein, already a chubby youth, was seated on the roof of the cab, Delaney was in the driver’s seat. Sitting up on the roof of the cab, both arms spread as if to embrace the world, was Stein’s handsome young brother Aram. He looked very young, like a child dressed in grown-up’s clothing.

‘Here’s to Aram,’ said Jerry Delaney before drinking his wine.

Stein raised his glass but did not speak. He could not take his eyes off the photo. Nowhere in his own house was there a picture of his brother; the pain was still too much to bear. But now, confronted with his brother’s face, he couldn’t turn away.

‘You still miss him, Charlie?’

Stein nodded and gulped his drink so that it almost made him cough. ‘I should never have let him drive that damned jeep,’ said Stein.

‘Jesus, Charlie. You’re not still blaming yourself for that, are you? That’s over thirty years ago, and it wasn’t your fault, buddy.’

‘I should never have let him drive that jeep. He was only a kid … You or I would have seen those mines.’

‘We hadn’t seen them, coming up the track,’ said Delaney. ‘We must have passed damn close to them too.’ Delaney touched Stein’s shoulder briefly. ‘Stop fretting, Charlie. Aram loved being with you. Do you think he would have wanted to miss going to war with you … he would have hated staying at home.’

Stein nodded and turned away. The subject was closed. They both drank wine and studied each other with that impartiality all men use to observe the battle between their friends and old age. ‘So the bank got taken for one hundred million bucks,’ said Jerry Delaney.

‘We got taken,’ Stein corrected him. ‘It’s our bank.’

‘I’ve done all right,’ said Jerry.

‘The colonel’s upset about it.’

‘He’ll get over it,’ said Delaney. ‘He’s going to keep the bank going, is he?’

‘He’s going to try. But …’ Stein raised his hand.

‘I’ve got to like having a piece of a Swiss bank,’ said Delaney. ‘It gives me a touch of class.’

‘It’s not all over yet,’ said Stein. ‘It’s getting rough out there.’

‘It’s not exactly Disneyland inside here,’ said Delaney. ‘Last night I had six wise guys put one of my topless waitresses into the ice-cream display. I had to call the cops, and in my kind of business it’s not a good idea to start asking help from cops. Six respectable looking dudes from the microchip convention! What in hell is it all coming to, Chuck?’

Stein shook his head. Delaney did not understand what he was telling him. ‘Really rough,’ said Stein. ‘I’m trying to set up a deal where we patch up our losses with whatever we can raise from the odds and ends that we have left over.’

‘The documents and carpets and stuff?’

‘But I’m tangling with some tough guys, Jerry. I took that souvenir Mauser over to the club in Roscoe. They’ve got a rifle range where I can try it out.’

Jerry Delaney shook his head. Old fellows such as Stein should leave guns alone; especially old war souvenir guns. But he did not say that; instead he tried to encourage his friend. ‘I’d say you can still handle yourself, Chuck, judging by what I just saw you do to my security guard downstairs.’

‘I’m not worried about myself,’ said Stein. ‘But my kid Billy doesn’t know enough to come in out of the rain …’

‘These kids,’ said Delaney, ‘they wouldn’t know a sweat shop from a sweet shop.’ He sighed. He propped himself on the edge of his desk. ‘You see my son Joey just now? What’s he going to do when I fall off my perch? Can you imagine him running this place? He couldn’t handle a girl scout who lost her earrings. What’s he going to do if he gets the mob trying to move in here, like they tried back in the sixties?’

‘What did you do, Jerry?’

‘You know what I did, Chuck. I took a few of my best guys and hit back.’

‘What’s that mean?’

Delaney looked around anxiously and then leant forward before answering in a lowered voice. ‘I got a guy in from New York – an explosives buff. He went up to Vegas and wired a couple of ignitions for me. One of those hoods went out through the roof of his limo. They still leant on me. Then I had a hit man come in from New Jersey. He was recommended by a guy I do business with. He blew away a big man here in town, and after that they got the idea that I wasn’t going to do business with them.’

Stein nodded sadly. He could see no parallel for him here. ‘Well, this one is not going to quiet down, Jerry. I feel like I’ve stuck my finger into a hornets’ nest. I don’t see any way out of it.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I might have to scram, Jerry. Real fast. That’s why I had to ask you for those papers.’

Stein left it like that and drank a little more of his wine. His friend went to the safe in the corner, swung the door open and brought out a bulging manilla envelope. He gave it to Stein and watched as the contents were laid out on the desk side by side. A Brazilian passport (complete with photo of Stein) in the name of Stefan Wrzoseki.

‘Polish name,’ explained Delaney, ‘so that no one will expect you to speak Portuguese.’ There was a birth certificate dated 19 October 1926 – a copy issued by the Polish Ministry of the Interior in Warsaw in 1938. There was a driving licence issued in France. ‘The French licences have no expiry date,’ explained Delaney. There was an American Express card too. ‘It’s a forgery. For Christ’s sake don’t buy anything with it. He’s taken the number from a block of unused ones, so that it can’t come up on their computer. Just use it as ID, you understand?’

‘This guy knows his way around,’ said Stein admiringly.

‘The best,’ said Delaney. ‘Now you’re all set up.’

‘No, Jerry. This stuff is to help a man who’s running. But the moment he stops running, he’s going to need a whole lot more than this.’

‘For instance?’

‘He needs a history, Jerry. References, bank accounts backed up by bank managers who’ll play ball … social security records, and all that stuff. He needs someone who can put him on the computers, Jerry.’

Delaney pulled a face.

‘I could pay,’ said Stein. There was a silence. Stein said, ‘I told you a lie just now. I told you I wasn’t frightened. I am frightened, Jerry.’

Jerry Delaney looked at his friend in surprise. ‘I’ll give you the kind of help you need, Chuck. But Jesus …’ Delaney went to the window and stared at the busy street below.

‘They blew away that guy MacIver.’

‘That will save you a few bucks,’ said Delaney.

‘I felt sorry for the guy,’ said Stein. ‘And that shooting in the bar on Western Avenue wasn’t just some kid on angel dust. MacIver was doing business with a guy named Lustig, and the next thing I know Lustig is taken suddenly dead. Lustig’s little movie company is taken over by a Kraut named Breslow, and he gets clobbered by a truck on the freeway. And what is the connecting link, Jerry? The connecting link is the stuff we brought out of the number two shaft of the Kaiseroda salt mine, Jerry.’

The neon lights were on everywhere. In the street there were a few men aimlessly peering at the girly pictures outside the peep shows, and peeking into the dark, topless bars. And cars cruised past continually, their lone occupants scanning the streets and doorways. Delaney saw none of that, neither did he see the big Caprice Classic parked near the marquee of the porno cinema across the street, or Boyd Stuart’s case officer or his West Coast section head who sat well back in the shadows watching the club. The British agents had been waiting there since Stein first entered the Gnu Club.

In Delaney’s office neither man spoke or moved. Delaney had never seen his friend look frightened before, let alone admit it. Finally Stein said, ‘And my kid, Billy. I’ll have to have papers for him too.’ Stein drank his wine. ‘Whether he’ll come with me, I don’t know. He says I’m an ignoramus; he says I’m klutzy, and tells me I’ve got no manners … He don’t like the way I eat or the way I talk.’

‘These uppity kids are all the same,’ said Delaney, in that automatic way that people talk when their minds are concentrating upon something else. ‘I paid for my Joey to go to college, and he comes home with all kinds of big ideas about how we should sell the club and go into real estate … goddamned kids.’ He went to the window and pulled down the blind and then closed the heavy curtains. ‘You’re talking about the mob, Chuck. There are no other people organized enough to give you a new identity.’ Delaney fiddled with the curtain cord. ‘They swore me to silence. I promised I’d never tell a living soul.’ He looked at Stein. ‘Petrucci,’ he said suddenly, like a man plunging into cold water. He turned away and fiddled with the photo of his wife and family sitting beside the pool at their holiday home at Lake Tahoe. ‘Bud Petrucci. Remember him? He’s the one who got those things for you. He remembers you well. He sends his best wishes; he likes you.’ Delaney nodded towards the forged passport.

‘Petrucci?’

‘Sergeant Petrucci. Twitchy little guy, a survivor from the trucks that went up the valley ahead of us. Remember we saw the smoke and wondered what it was? Then we saw three bodies – one of them black – all stark naked, and you said they must be GIs because the bodies were so clean.’ Stein felt suddenly cold, as cold as he had felt in that long-ago Tunisian winter. ‘As cold as a bookmaker’s heart,’ his brother Aram said, and they had laughed. It was a long, slow haul for the column up the scrubby slopes of those rock-strewn hills. They were exposed to the wind here at the crest of this low ridge. Below them there was vegetation and, at the bottom of the gully where the earth was red, a glint of water. There would be cover there; cover against air attack and the eyes of enemy reconnaissance units, and against the elements too. But there would also be mud.

Stein wiped the dust from his face, as he did every minute, and resolved to obtain some goggles at any price. Everyone had them, even the desert Arabs, everyone had them except the soldiers of the army which had paid for them. Behind him he heard the movement of the machine-gun mounting as his brother Aram scoured the skies for aircraft. At least Stein had been able to get goggles for his young brother; for that at least he was thankful.

Up ahead, a smudge of smoke was marking the hill over which the supply column had gone just before radioing their calls for assistance. Delaney was driving, Stein was by his side. They were ‘point’, and that meant the first vehicle to encounter anything that was coming. It was Stein who noticed the truck, axle-deep in soft sand, down the drift amongst the scrub. But Delaney saw the bodies.

There were three of them, sprawled at the side of the narrow track. One was black, the other two paler than any native skin. ‘GIs,’ said Stein. ‘Stripped by the Arabs in as many minutes as it’s taken us to come up the valley. Even their dog tags are gone.’

‘GIs?’ said Delaney. ‘How can you tell?’ The engine stalled; it was overheating. He pressed the starter but the engine did not catch. Suddenly it was very quiet.

‘Because they are so clean,’ said Stein. The three bodies were all youngsters, little more than children really. These were the first dead men they had ever seen.

‘Maybe we should bury them,’ said Delaney. No sooner had he said it than Lieutenant Pitman came striding forward to see what was causing the delay. Now he too looked at the bodies, and waited to hear what Stein said.

‘Let’s go,’ said Stein. ‘You guys are going to see plenty more dead bodies before the day is over – leave them for the burial detail.’

‘Goddamn Arabs!’ said Delaney. ‘Stripped the poor bastards bare ass.’

There was a sudden noise of distant explosions – muffled like funeral drums so that the sound came more like a continuous rumble than as separate bangs. Along the crest of the ridge ahead of them patches of grey smoke appeared, moving along the horizon like a family of elephants walking trunk to tail. Then came a great ball of flame and black smoke, and a crackle of exploding small-arms ammunition.