“What I’m proposing,” I said, “is a sort of holy alliance.”
“Against Bannister?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Go on,” he said. “Your proposition sounds appealing.”
“We work together,” I said. “We pool information — you’ve probably got more to contribute than I do — and we join forces. You help me pin down Bannister and I help you get the briefcase. If I get my hands on it I give it to you for five thousand dollars — half of what it’s worth to you. If you get it alone, it’s yours free and clear.”
He stubbed out his cigarette very elaborately in a small glass ashtray. “I’d pay you the five thousand in any event,” he said slowly. “I really would prefer it that way. Otherwise you’d have reason to work at cross-purposes with me under certain circumstances. If either of us recovers the briefcase, you’ll still get five thousand dollars.”
I said that was fine.
He thought some more. “One thing disturbs me, Mr. London. How can you be certain that I won’t run off and leave you to chase Mr. Bannister alone once I’ve got the briefcase? Or that I’ll pay you for it?”
“I can’t.”
He turned both palms upward. His gun was tucked into the arm of the chair. “Then—”
“By the same token,” I said, “how can you be sure I won’t let you go to hell once I get Bannister? We’re both taking a chance, Armin. I don’t mind trusting you. I think you’re trustworthy.”
He laughed, delighted. “Perhaps I am,” he admitted. “Up to a point. Do you know something? I really believe now that you don’t have that briefcase, Mr. London. And that you never did have it at all.”
“I told you that before.”
“But I didn’t believe you before.”
“And you believe me now?”
He produced his pack of Turkish cigarettes again, offered them around again, lit one again for himself. “Do you know anything about confidence men, Mr. London?”
“A little.”
“I’ve had some experience in that area,” he said confidentially. “One does so many things in order to survive. Are you familiar with the First Law of Con?”
I wasn’t.
“Very simply: If the mark does not see your point of profit, you may sell him real estate on the planet Jupiter. If, so far as he can see, there’s no reason for you to be swindling him, you can steal him blind.”
“Uh-huh.”
He smiled pleasantly. “So,” he said. “For a moment let’s take a different postulate. Let us assume that you do indeed possess the briefcase. If so, what possible advantage could you hope to gain by this meeting tonight? You want to get five thousand for the case when I’ve already offered you ten. I have to assume you’re telling the truth, Mr. London. Otherwise I can’t see your point of profit.”
Maddy was grinning. She had come to Armin’s room determined to hate the little man. Now she liked him. He was a charming son of a bitch.
“I accept your terms,” he said. “One hand shall wash the other, as it were. It is a bargain.”
I hesitated.
“Isn’t it a bargain?”
“Just one thing,” I said. “About the briefcase.”
“Go on.”
“If it contains espionage material, it’s no bargain. Papers relating to the security of the United States of America... Hell, you know the cliché, I’m sure.”
He smiled.
“I’m an American,” I went on. “I don’t wave the flag, don’t sit around telling everybody what a goddam patriot I am. But I don’t play traitor either.”
He puffed on his cigarette. “I understand,” he said. “I was not born in this country myself, as you must have guessed. My native land doesn’t exist at the present time. It was a small state in the Balkans. The patchwork quilt of Europe — that’s what they once called it. Now the patchwork quilt has turned into a red carpet. But that doesn’t matter.
“I’ve travelled all over the world, Mr. London. You might call me a picaresque character. I’ve lived by my wits, really. Now I live in the United States. I married an America girl, and, a number of years ago became a naturalized citizen.”
He smiled at the memory. “I prefer this country,” he said. “However, I don’t think it’s paradise on earth, or that all other countries are perforce wretched and abominable. I’ve been to them and I know better. The fact that you elect your officials and that these elections, except in certain urban localities, are honest ones, doesn’t intrigue me much. I’m a selfish man, Mr. London. In the pure sense of the word. My comfort is more important to me than abstract justice.”
“That’s not so uncommon.”
“Probably not. But what I’m really trying to say is that I find it easier and more pleasant to live in America. The police may not be honest, but they are a little less blatant in their thievery. They may slap a person around but rarely beat him to death. A person’s more free to live his own life here.”
He sighed. “I won’t go so far as to say that I wouldn’t sell out the United States of America. I know myself too well. I probably would. But the price would be extremely high.”
The room stayed silent for several seconds then. I glanced at Maddy. She’d been listening very carefully to Armin and her face was thoughtful. I looked back at Armin. He was putting out his cigarette. I wondered if he had meant to say all that he said, if maybe his words had carried him away.
He looked up, his eyes bright. “I become intolerably long-winded at times,” he said apologetically. “You asked a most simple question and I delivered myself of a long sermon which didn’t even supply the answer to your question. Set your mind at rest, Mr. London. I’m no spy. The briefcase contains no State secrets.”
“That’s good.”
“Thus,” he said, “there are no problems, no barriers between us. Unless you have another question?”
“That’s all.”
“Then we work together? It’s a bargain?”
“It’s a bargain,” I said.
Nine
He shook out a cigarette and held it loose and limp between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He didn’t light it. Instead he turned it over and over, staring thoughtfully at it. Suddenly he shrugged and stuck it back in the pack.
“I smoke too much,” he said. “I also have a tendency to waste a great deal of time. But it is difficult to know where to begin. I want to give you as much information as I possibly can, yet I also want to take up a minimum of your time. Your time and mine as well. Time is precious. We will profit more through action than through words. Yet words are essential, too.”
In turn he studied the floor and the ceiling and his neatly manicured fingernails. He looked up at me. “Let me begin somewhere in the neighborhood of the beginning, Mr. London. You are a detective. Your profession must bring you in line with crime and criminals to a greater or lesser degree. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Wallstein jewels?”
A soft bell rang somewhere in the back of my mind. I told him I never heard of the jewels.
He said: “Franz Wallstein was the second son of a Prussian industrialist. He was born shortly after the turn of the century. His father was a typical member of the Junker caste — a second or third-rate Krupp or Thiessen. The older son — I believe his name was Reinhardt, not that it matters — followed the father into the firm. Franz, the younger son, struck out on his own. In the early thirties he entered the service of a particularly noxious Austrian corporal.”
“Hitler.”
“Or Schicklgruber, as you prefer it. Franz Wallstein was neither well-mannered nor intelligent. Followers of fascist movements rarely are. His sole virtue was his dedication to this questionable cause. While never becoming particularly important, he rose to his own level quickly and enjoyed a certain amount of security. He possessed the qualifications of height, blonde hair, blue eyes. He was assigned to a troop of Himmler’s Elite Guards in the SS. Later, during the war, he was placed second in command at one of the larger concentration camps. I think it was Belsen; I’m not entirely sure. In that capacity his dedication did not prove entirely flawless. He stole.”