‘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.
‘The Krauts have ranged in on the supply column,’ said Delaney in alarm. He hit the starter again; this time the engine fired and shuddered into life.
‘Prepare to move out,’ shouted Pitman, and behind them Stein could hear shouting and arguing and the scream of the engines as the men tried to manoeuvre the half-tracks on the narrow pathway. Pitman, his tie tucked into his neatly pressed, starched shirt, was holding his new binoculars to his eyes. ‘There’s a soldier coming up the track… one of the guys from the column maybe-a sergeant. He’s hurt… someone go and give him a hand.’ Delaney went.
Charles Stein rubbed his face. The memory ended as he intended it should. Perhaps some of the details were wrong but it did not matter.
Delaney said, ‘Petrucci was the sergeant-the machine gunner-who was coming towards us up the hill, just about the time Major Carson got killed. Petrucci-short guy, big black moustache, gold rings on his ringers-stayed with us all during the retreat.’
‘Retreat,’ said Stein. ‘Is that what we’re calling it nowadays?’
‘His brother is a lawyer, a mob lawyer, in New Jersey. Petrucci retired and lives in Phoenix. He’ll know the people you’ll have to talk to.’ Delaney opened a drawer in his desk and found an address book. He turned to the name Petrucci and held the book open while Stein wrote down the details. Stein noticed that Delaney did not let him look at the other pages, or even handle it.
‘You’re a pal,’ said Stein.
‘Then do me a favour,’ said Delaney. ‘Don’t tell him I gave you the address, huh?’
20
‘And you’ve got good operatives tailing Stein’s son?’ asked the West Coast section head. He wanted to show that he knew what he was doing. The case officer yawned.
‘Good guy; ex-LAPD cop. Not much chance Billy Stein will show him anything new.’ He interlocked his fingers and stretched his arms out in front of him until the joints cracked. That it was a gesture of both boredom and disdain was registered by the section head. He was not popular.
‘Just one man?’
‘I didn’t get into this business yesterday,’ said the CO. ‘I’ve allocated five good men for Stein and another five for Max Breslow. They’re working two turns, two guys per shift, with the fifth man for relief and emergencies. It’s costing us more than we can afford. We can’t keep it going for ever.’
‘Local people?’
‘Not all of them, but they all know the city well enough.’
‘I feel sure Stein and Breslow have those damned papers here in town. Stein was able to take that Dr Morell file to show Stuart at fairly short notice. I think that means they have everything close by.’
‘Could be anywhere,’ said the CO. ‘Stein went to Geneva last month. We don’t know where he went in Switzerland. Could be that’s where he has the papers. His son Billy has a plane and he spends a lot of time down in Mexico, fooling around with that twelve-metre sailing boat. The documents might be somewhere south of the border, might even be on the yacht.’
The CO shifted in his seat. They had been in the car a long time by now and he was becoming uncomfortable. He watched a radio car drive slowly down the street; the cops eyed the passing crowds with careful and suspicious concentration.
‘Not on the boat,’ said the section head after the police car had passed them. ‘Not unless they have split the documents into more than one lot. The boat wouldn’t hold them. The report I saw describes the load as two large packing cases full.’
‘But maybe not all documents,’ said the CO. ‘Stein got suddenly rich after the war; I’d guess that there was also gold and stuff in the trucks that Stein helped to steal. The documents were probably a disappointment to them at the time.’
‘Disappointment, yes, I suppose so.’
‘The kind of disappointment I need once in a while,’ said the CO enviously.
‘Who did you say he’ll be talking to in this club?’
‘The owner is Jerry Delaney, a smooth-talking crook who’s into everything from porno movies to stolen fruit machines. Suspected of mob connections.’
‘In the army with Stein, you say?’
‘We’re not certain of that. London won’t let us dip into the Washington computer, you know, not even unofficially. But they are both about the same age; so it’s probable.’
‘I don’t think we’re going to get anything out of this,’ said the section head. ‘Let’s tell the people in the other car to take over. I’m sure that Stein will stay in that club all evening and then drive home and go to bed. I promised to phone London tonight with a situation report.’