The Wind Chill Factor (31 page)

“The Nazis are trying to kill you and they’re doing it badly. Maybe they don’t want to kill you—I don’t know. Maybe they only want to scare you off. But I don’t think so. I don’t think they want you to go on living knowing what you do.”

“But what do I know?” I asked. “Really?”

“Not important. You may not even know that you know it. Alive you’re just a terrible, unnecessary risk. You’d almost think you’re being protected by someone—simply because you’re still alive. God, maybe.”

He got up and paced the room, flexing his muscles, doing his little isometrics routine. He stopped at the bureau and threaded a striped tie beneath the collar of his white shirt. Both items had been purchased the day before: he found time for everything and I always wound up hot and sweaty.

“Now is that all—what we see right up here on the surface—is that all there is?”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Think about it for a minute.” He zipped his pants back up and smoothed the tie down over his shirtfront. The pinstriped vest came off the rack next. “Nobody bothered you until you were headed for home. They didn’t kill Cyril until he got home. They killed Paula. Who never left home once she returned. Home. Cooper’s Falls. I don’t know—but there’s something there. Maybe those boxes. They were stolen and to get the one they missed they damned near blew up the town. Sounds to me like a hell of a murder motive, if motive is what I mean. …” He slid the vest on, fitted it snugly across his chest, buttoned it up, and reached for his coat.

“Which leaves those papers my friend at Columbia deciphered, that old plan for taking over the United States from within once the Germans won the war, the whole Austin Cooper thing.

“Now, I didn’t set a hell of a lot of store in that. Oh, I believed they planned it and so on, but it seemed like childish stuff—be the first Nazi in your block to rule the world, crap like that.

“But—now, listen to me, Cooper, damn it, what if they all believed it all, what if it was all a long-term reality? I mean, Jesus, what if Steynes isn’t just mopping up survivors, like shooting German sailors in the cold, black water? What if Steynes is trying to
stop
something? What if Cyril was going to blow the whistle? And Dolldorf? What if something, something
real
is happening
now?
Well, I mean to tell you, you’d better get your ass over to the Yard and look at those goddamn pictures and get your head in the game. And cut out spending all your time thinking about the woman in the case.”

I went with Peterson to the Yard, clasped Bertie Redmond’s thin cool hand, and looked at the Nazi file. Nothing. No familiar faces, no gaunt man, no stubby helper. But I tried. Peterson had shaken me.

We left the Yard and taxied back to the street where Brendel had his office and where I’d left the rented Audi. Having obliged Peterson by accompanying him to see Redmond, I had some arguing room. In the back of the cab I made my case.

“You think I’m making too much out of the woman—Lee,” I said, trying to repress the emotions I felt when I spoke of her.

“My point is that Lee is our handhold, the place we can begin to pry things loose. Cyril must have felt the same way—after all, she’s one of us, even if she doesn’t know it. And Cyril pushed closer and closer to her. We just don’t know how close he came. He may actually have confronted her—”

“And that may be what got him killed,” Peterson said flatly.

“Well, they already know about us. We can’t make our situation any worse.”

He nodded, grumbling. He was wearing a bowler. New. If they killed him they’d be killing a well-dressed man.

“Don’t forget the telephone calls to Paula,” I said. “Munich. He called her from Munich. Brendel and Lee live in Munich—that’s Cyril’s only connection with Munich.”

Peterson kept nodding as we paid the driver and marched briskly down the street to the Audi. I pointed out Brendel’s office but he ignored me. “Okay, okay,” he said abruptly when I got in behind the wheel. “Let’s see this woman. I want to see her.”

I looked up, focused out of my reverie, and saw them.

She was wearing a forest-green pantsuit with a matching band in her hair and he wore a dark-green sportcoat, black slacks, black turtleneck, and they were headed for a matching dark-green Jaguar XKE with the organlike exhaust signifying the new V-12. It was the man from last night, the handsome model-type in the black trench coat. Together now, laughing, they looked like lovers from a television ad. They were young and beautiful and rich and they were happy because they didn’t smell bad and if you would stop smelling so rotten you’d be just like them.

“Okay,” Peterson said, all business, “let’s tail them. Maybe they’re off to blow up the Tower of London, strike a blow for the Fourth Reich.” He snorted, but he wasn’t kidding. His face was tense, grappling with the situation. I could see him changing during the morning: he was going on the offensive and I hoped I could stay free of flying debris. Looking at him in that instant before I switched the ignition, I was more frightened of Peterson than I was of all the rest of them.

They wandered among the French Impressionists at the Tate, moved on to the Wallace Collection in Manchester Square, and stood transfixed before one Canaletto after another and then strolled into the street, his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t laugh, or even smile often, but occasionally she presented her face for a kiss and his lips nonchalantly brushed hers and then her smile would come, her arm would curl around his waist, and the Jaguar would slide off into the traffic.

In Burlington Street they visited a small gallery and somberly inspected an exhibition of Francis Bacon’s visceral, brooding nudes. She spoke with a man, indicated one of the paintings, spoke to him while he wrote down instructions. They left talking seriously, animatedly. Art lovers.

“Lovers, too,” Peterson said. “Just plain lovers. Herr Brendel goes back to Munich to mind the store or the Reich and his wife gets it on with a handsome stud. Not exactly a new story. Unless—” He paused to light a cigar. We were sitting in a small restaurant where they were lunching, hands touching on the linen. “Unless, this guy is a fag—which is possible from the looks of him. Some women—married women—hang around like this with art-loving homosexuals and the busy husbands don’t really mind. Figure it’s safer than having a young wife on the loose.”

“Possible,” I granted. “But it could be just the opposite. Homosexual husband gives wife a bit of freedom—equally old story.”

“She doesn’t look her age,” he said, “if she’s your sister.”

“Nobody does anymore.”

“No, I suppose not.”

They returned to Belgravia Place late in the afternoon and we went back to the hotel. The telephone was ringing when Peterson pushed the door open.

I picked up the telephone.

“Ah, you see, I’ve not forgotten you, have I? I promised I’d ring you up and, lo and behold, here I am.” Followed by a cascade of chuckles.

Peterson stared at me, mouthing the word “who?” with elaborate impatience.

“MacDonald,” I said into the mouthpiece. “How nice of you to call.” He chatted amiably, much of which I missed because Peterson was, if not exactly dancing, doing an animated prowl punctuated by tiny leaps, his fist slamming into his palm, whispering, “Hot damn! Hot damn! Leave it to good old MacDonald,” he muttered happily and disappeared into the bathroom. His head jerked back into the doorway. “Make that date. I want to see him. Tonight.”

The pub, if not actually squalid, lacked any sense of flair or style other than that attributable to the curry parlor next door. It wasn’t far from the docks and the smell of the Thames and fog and rain and unwashed barges hung over the premises like Fred Hoyle’s black cloud. Through the smoke, MacDonald clung to the bar surrounded by taller and presumably disagreeable ruffians.

He waved jovially, his red-faced smile verging on the forced, his hand pudgily clamped on a pint of brackish-smelling stout. The odors of the place were in constant battle and I rather liked it after a moment of getting accustomed.

I introduced Peterson, who shook hands with a warmth so uncharacteristic and phony that I expected strangers to stop and stare. MacDonald bought it, though, and Peterson hovered, occasionally bumping into him, excusing himself, reaching for the counter, buying drinks, throwing bills around like a maddened keeper of revels. Peterson was bubbling with conversation: How did MacDonald find Argentina? Oh, you weren’t in Argentina, well, it must have been Cooper, then, I know
someone
was in Argentina—his voice slightly drunken and gravelly, his speech slurring like someone in a bad play. But in the stifling air and noise of the pub Peterson must have seemed to MacDonald a gregarious, friendly, half-drunk American.

“Have another,” Peterson kept saying, filling his new friend with stout. From time to time I caught MacDonald’s eye. He winked, a desperate smile playing, then Peterson was at him again, asking questions about the insurance business and what was MacDonald’s territory and did he ever get to Germany and what was Germany like?

“Like any other place, I suppose,” MacDonald said. He flashed a soiled, once-white handkerchief across his round glistening face. “You hear a lot of rubbish about the Germans, of course, but they’re like everyone else, I’d say.”

“Ever meet a Nazi?” Peterson asked curiously. “I mean, hell, Cooper and I are just leaving for Germany in a couple of days and I was wondering. … Missed that war, too young, but I’ve always been fascinated by the period. Now, I hear there are still Nazis in Germany. …”

“Well, really, I travel there so seldom,” MacDonald said, his face beginning to blanch. He licked his lips and he came away dry. “But I think the talk of Nazis is bunk. There was a new Nazi party, called something or other, a few years ago, that had people worried.” He wiped his face again. He was quite pale. Peterson pushed his stout at him. “But, but—” MacDonald lost the thread of his remarks for a moment, then pushed on, lower lip trembling. He did not look well. “But they got point-oh-six percent of the vote in the last elections—”

“Remarkable you should remember that,” Peterson said admiringly. He wiped his face with his hand. Sweat seeped at the edges of his hairpiece, his mustache drooped. He was the bandit again. “Remarkable! Are you interested in politics, MacDonald? Or history?”

MacDonald was ashen by now and I couldn’t make eye contact. His eyes had gone fishlike.

“MacDonald,” I said, grasping his sleeve. “You don’t look well. Are you all right?”

“Not feeling too chipper, old boy,” he muttered.

“Have another stout,” Peterson said, almost shouting into MacDonald’s fading gaze. “You’re off your feed—some nice hot curry’ll put some life back in you!” He slapped MacDonald on the back and shouted to the bar-keep down the line that we needed more stout. “Come on, Mac, drink it up, nice warm stout good for the tummy. …”

MacDonald’s hand was shaking as he reached for the mug Peterson was shoving at him. He opened his mouth but was too dry to get the words out. He loosened the blue scarf at his neck and flung back the coat. It was inevitable. “Excuse me,” he muttered and pushed back through the crowd, urgent but weak, with one saddened backward glance.

“Jesus, you were hard on him,” I said. “He really looked awful—what was your performance supposed to prove, anyway?” I was irritated. I’d never seen his manic routine before but MacDonald, even in our conversation about him at the hotel, had served to excite him.

“Tut, tut,” Peterson observed laconically, sliding a long bulging black leather billfold onto the counter. “I do not trust nor do I much like your Mr. MacDonald. So I put some rotten stuff into his awful warm stout, awful rotten stuff that makes your mouth and eyes and joints dry up like they’d been calked—always leaves you just enough strength to get to the crapper where you puke up everything down to your shoelaces. And then you collapse. Puts a great strain on the old ticker and generally renders the recipient pretty well
hors de combat
—”

“What? It doesn’t make you go blind and your cock fall off?” I glared at him.

“No, Cooper, it’s jerking off that does all those things. And worse.” He opened MacDonald’s wallet and slid a handful of cards into his heavy hand with the black tufts on the knuckles. “MacDonald!” He spat in disgust. “Christ. His name is Milo Keepnews, he lives in Madrid … and he, heh, heh, works for something called Mandoza Imports. I’ll bet Mendoza Imports—”

“Keepnews,” I said. “
Milo
Keepnews. …”

Peterson thumbed through more cards, scraps of paper.

“The question is, who the hell does he work for? Us—that is, the CIA, or them—the Brendel bunch.” He glanced up. “I’d say those are the primary alternatives.” He saw the puzzled look on my face. “Big leagues, Cooper, and I’d say offhand old Milo Keepnews here is either in the market to watch you and kill you … or watch you and keep you from being killed. Either way, he’s dangerous because he can’t possibly protect you and he draws the opposition and tough guys like me like flies to shit.” He tilted his stout and drained it off.

I stared at him because I didn’t know what the hell was going on. “CIA?” I muttered.

“Fingers in everything. They look at each other on Monday mornings and they say, well, hell, somewhere out there there’s somebody doing something bad. And then they start poking around and they notice a murder here or a town getting blown up in Minnesota or an old Nazi professor gets knocked off in a Buenos Aires high-rise and they say now, there’s something bad, and away they go. So maybe old Milo is one of them. Organization man, whoever he is. Look at all these credit cards, Eurail pass, airlines, oil. We just don’t know whose organization. But he’s holding iron, I know that, and I think we’d better go see how he’s doing.”

I followed Peterson’s thick back as he bulldozed through the glut of people. The door to the toilet was chipped and the spring was broken on the outside, hung loose from a nail. Keepnews had remembered to lock the door. Ear to the thin wood, we heard him retch, heard him move and groan.

“MacDonald, old boy,” Peterson called. “Are you there?”