‘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 round 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 October 19, 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.