‘I saw it,’ admitted Max Breslow. ‘More than once. And I saw the monster too.’
‘Was he a monster, Papa?’
‘Let history be the judge,’ said Breslow. ‘It is too early to rake over the reputations of those so recently dead.’
‘It’s thirty-five years ago, Papa,’ said Mary. She watched him closely and he knew he was being observed although he did not turn round, or even move his head.
‘It’s only yesterday for some of us,’ said Breslow. How did he ever get into this absurd situation? The money was welcome, of course, but this wretched film about Hitler, which he had never wanted to have anything to do with, might be the very thing to get him into trouble with the Americans. If the newspapers discovered that he had served with the Waffen SS that might be enough to have him deported. Damn Kleiber. Damn him, damn him, damn him.
‘Cheer up, Papa,’ said Mary.
32
Since the beginning of July, Max Breslow had rented a temporary office on the block where the sets were made. It was shabbier than his previous office on Melrose, and certainly not the sort of place where he would want to bring clients, but it was clean and convenient enough until they actually started shooting. Then he would move into a proper suite of offices which would house all the production staff in one building. He reached into his pocket for the well-worn key; goodness only knows how many other producers had used it-big hits, big flops, mostly men like himself, he supposed, small-time producers shrewd enough to plan towards a modest profit, rather than to risk everything in the hope of a bonanza. But surely no other producer had been blackmailed into making a picture.
Max Breslow went outside, across the lot, and up a single flight of wooden stairs. He walked along an open balcony to a door marked ‘Number Fourteen’ in elaborate, painted script lettering. He went inside and one of the phones rang. The receptionist doubled as telephone operator in this block. She must have seen him come up.
‘Breslow.’
‘There is a message in your clip, Mr Breslow. A visitor is waiting for you downtown.’
Breslow sighed. ‘Where downtown?’
‘A pizza parlour on La Cienega between Pico and Venice Boulevards intersection. Buster’s, it’s called. It’s one of those eateries which screen old movies all day.’ She had a shrill New York accent that fascinated Breslow. He wondered whether she had at one time been an actress.
‘Who?’ said Breslow. ‘Not the press, is it, Lucy?’
‘Did you ever hear of a press reporter lunching in Buster’s? Those guys are all in the Polo Lounge. No, this was a message from someone called Kleiber. Do you want me to spell that for you?’
‘No, I don’t want you to spell it, Lucy. What time did he call?’
‘About half an hour ago. He said he’d just arrived on the airplane. That’s why he wants to meet you near the airport, I suppose.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Your wife says, will you pick up her shoes if you are back in Westlake before six? She said you’d know where, and they’ll let you have them without a ticket.’
‘Thanks, Lucy. Get my daughter a car, tell her I’ll see her for dinner at Tony Roma’s Rib Place in Beverly Hills and I’ll drive her home. Explain that I had an unexpected meeting, will you, Lucy?’
‘Sure will, Mr Breslow.’
Max Breslow never had any trouble spotting his friend. Willi Kleiber never changed very much. Apart from a little weight around the hips and some grey hair, he had changed little since the days when he had been with Max in the war. He had always favoured very close-cropped hair, and his teeth still flashed when he smiled. Even the colour of the expensive suits he wore never varied much from the drab hues of wartime Feldgrau, and he liked to wear old-fashioned high boots, so like the ones the army had given him.
He was sitting at the back of the pizza parlour. It was typical of Willi to choose such a place for a meeting, a ‘Treff’ he would have called it; he had never really stopped fighting the War. Max Breslow looked round him with a shudder. The plain wooden tables and uncomfortable benches were, littered with paper plates, the remains of a pizza and salad and some Coke cups. It was not the sort of place that Max Breslow would have chosen for a meeting. At the sides of the eating room there were a dozen coin-in-the-slot amusements, most of them with video screens and warlike themes. ‘U-boat-Commander’, ‘Blitzkrieg’, ‘Dive Bomber’ or ‘Panzer Clash’, from each of the machines in use there came the electronic bleeps of ricocheting bullets and the continual rat-a-tat of simulated machine-gun fire. This was the war we won, thought Max Breslow, this war that came after the war.
‘Max, it’s good to see you again.’ Willi Kleiber was sitting behind a pile of plates and had obviously enjoyed his meal. It was the nearest thing he could get to dining in a foxhole, thought Max Breslow.
‘Hello, Willi. You’re looking well.’ On a big screen in the corner there was an old scratchy silent film being shown. A fat man in a black suit and top hat sat at a table, while an obsequious waiter set a vast meal before him. Max Breslow looked away. He hated silent comedies.
‘I came straight from the airport. I don’t sleep very well on these long-distance flights.’
There was a roar of childish laughter. As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, Max Breslow realized that the other side of the restaurant was crowded with small children.
‘Get some coffee,’ said Willi.
Max got a paper cup from the counter and the youthful assistant poured weak black coffee into it. Breslow returned to the table and sat down, carefully avoiding the shredded lettuce and spilt ketchup. Willi Kleiber reached into his back pocket and produced a silver hip flask. With a furtiveness that he clearly relished, Willi Kleiber poured a measure of brandy into Max Breslow’s coffee. It was always like this. And every time they met they went through the same ritual. It was like meeting a stranger, thought Breslow, rather than someone he had seen only a few weeks ago. Perhaps that was what they were: not friends or old comrades, simply two strangers who met often.
‘Your family are well?’ Kleiber asked.
‘Marie-Louise loves California,’ said Breslow with automatic politeness. ‘And so does my daughter Mary.’
‘And you, Max?’
‘There are things I miss, Willi, but the sunshine works wonders for my old joints. And what about your family? Still well?’
‘My father is very old, Max. He is tired and in pain.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Breslow. ‘I remember your father well. He was a fine old man.’
‘My father’s life ended in 1945, Max. The war is the only thing he ever wants to talk about. Now he is forgetting even that.’
Max Breslow could see the movie screen out of the corner of his eye. In spite of all his resolutions about old films, he shifted his position slightly to see it better. The camera position had just changed to show that the man sitting down to dinner in the top hat was on a railroad track which stretched to the horizon. Breslow said, ‘But your mother is quite well?’ It cut to a locomotive in mid-shot, under-cranked to make it seem as if the train was speeding at 200 miles an hour.
‘Thank God,’ said Willi. He had his back to the screen. He always sat facing the door, Max remembered that now. They said he had been wounded in a restaurant in Athens during the war. Some passerby had thrown a grenade.
‘We have a lot to be thankful for,’ said Breslow.
Kleiber put some more brandy into both cups of coffee. It was like a ceremony. Only after these preliminaries would it be possible to have the real conversation.