‘I just want to spell out the security implications of what you’re doing,’ Shaeffer said. ‘And don’t volunteer anything just because the pleasure of the chat carries you away. The general’s playing this one close to his chest. All we’ve been told is that you’re being loaned to the British. If the General sees fit not to tell us why, that’s fine by me. Got it?’
This was obtuse in the extreme. They both knew what Cal did. He ran the Tin Man, whoever he was. He doubted it was true of Frank-but Shaeffer was putting official distance between himself and Cal.
‘I’ll put it as plainly as I can. I don’t want any incidents.’
Cal looked at Reininger, but Reininger said nothing.
‘Incidents?’
‘Any incident. Especially as in “diplomatic incident”.’
‘Diplomatic incident? Major, the British asked, dammit, escorted me here. What could they possibly construe as a diplomatic incident?’
‘I wasn’t thinking of the British,’ Shaeffer said. ‘They’re not the only ones in this war. And until we’re in it, whatever the reality, let’s at least have it look like we’re neutral. You get yourself in trouble Captain and you’re on your own. Capiche?’
‘Absolutely,’ Cal said. ‘I capiche.’
Shaeffer flickered up a phoney smile, the merest flash of pearly teeth, got up and left-the audience, which was what it felt like to Cal, was clearly over. Reininger stayed. Got up, stretched, and sat himself down in the chair ShaefFer had vacated.
‘He can’t mean that, sir. He can’t possibly mean that?’
Reininger sighed, a sigh meant to sound knowing and worldly.
‘Calvin, I’ve known you since you were a boy. Behind closed doors I’m Frank. You don’t have to call me sir or Colonel. And yes-Deke means exactly what he said. You’re going to have to be very, very careful.’
‘Sir… Frank… I find it very hard to believe that anyone in this embassy or the War Department in Washington seriously gives a damn what opinion in Berlin thinks of what we’re doing. If they did, then perhaps we shouldn’t be spying on them in the first place?’
‘Well… that’s just Deke’s way. The guy’s a frustrated diplomat at heart. But you’re wrong all the same. What we do here matters mightily back in Washington. Not in the WD maybe, but up on the hill. Calvin, you just ask your daddy.’
Cal knew Reininger was right-every letter from the old man (old him that-but the remark rankled.
‘These days I tend not to ask my father quite as much as I used to.’
Reininger grinned.
‘We all grow up. Eventually. And-you should understand this. Deke has a way of overstating things, but the embassy’s been through turmoil since you were last here. We’ve had a clerk busted by the British for spying-I can’t emphasise too strongly the effect of Tyler Kent’s arrest on Anglo-Am relations. It was a transatlantic disaster. And we’ve had an ambassador practically demand to be recalled-and a new man appointed who’s something of an unknown quantity. And on top of that-and strictly between the two of us-we have the General. Bright as a button and ornery as a jackass. Gelbroaster hates Joe Kennedy. And he doesn’t care who knows it… if Kennedy hadn’t gone back home I hate to think what might have blown up between the two of them.’
‘I know,’ said Cal. ‘He told me.’
‘You’ve seen him already?’
‘At the hotel on Saturday night. Just sort of bumped into him.’
‘Then you don’t need me to tell you-as far as Gelbroaster’s concerned we’re already at war. Don’t be misled by that. It’s his policy-it can’t be American policy. Right now, from now until the day FDR goes to Congress and asks to declare war… we are neutral and we act neutral. Which kind of brings me to the point. Calvin, you can’t do this in uniform.’
Cal was nonplussed. From the global to the downright trivial in three sentences.
‘I don’t have anything else. They left me no time to pack. I’ve the uniform, a spare pair of pants and the usual stuff.’
Reininger stood up again. Stuck his left hand in his inside pocket.
‘That’s easily fixed,’ he said. ‘Take these and go to a fifty shilling tailor.’
Cal took a small bundle of printed paper strips from him.
‘What are they?’
‘Clothing coupons. Should be enough there for a suit. Can’t get one without ‘em. Everything’s rationed now. Try Soho-one of those narrow little streets the other side of Regent Street. If there’s one shop there doing suits at ten bucks apiece there must be a hundred.’
§ 15
Across Regent Street at Mappin and Webb’s jeweller’s, down a dark alley-London had more than its fair share of those-along the side of a mock-gothic Victorian church and Cal emerged into a narrow Soho street of the kind he thought Reininger had meant. A couple of turns later and he stood in an alley off Carnaby Street facing the green, peeling shopfront of a fifty shilling tailor. Above the door in faded gold lettering…
Lazarus & Moses Lippschitz Bespoke Tailors
by app’t to
His Highness Duke Griswald of Transylvania
est 1891
and in the window in crayon on cardboard…
50/- a suit-You vant it ve gottit!
He pushed at the door. The pressure of his foot on the rubber mat triggered a bell somewhere in the deep recesses of the shop. Cal stood amid roll upon roll of dull, male-coloured cloth-the un-peacock hues of black, brown and grey, and the scarcely enlivening dark blue-the stripes of chalk and oxblood. Still the bell rang. Persistent to the point of annoyance. He stepped back onto the mat to see if a second step undid the effect of the first and out of nowhere a short, old, white-haired man in a yarmulke appeared at the speed of sound, pressed a button by the counter and the ringing stopped. The man smiled a small, fleeting, professional smile and looked over his shoulder.
‘Mo! Mo! Shmegege. The Yanks have landed! Mach schnelll’
He turned back to Cal. Looked Cal up and down, measuring him with the eye as only tailors and undertakers could do. Cal looked back. A tiny man, less than five foot four-the yarmulke held on to his thinning hair with kirby grips, a rim of close-cropped white beard, a tape measure slung around his neck, a grubby waistcoat on top of a threadbare cardigan, pins stuck in all over it and chalk dust smeared at the rims of its pockets.
‘Mo! Mo! Mach schnell, you momzer!’
Another man, identical in every respect to the first, scurried out from the back room. Eyed him up and down in the same way.
‘Vot? Just the one? You said Yanks. All I see is one Yank. Vot use you tink is one Yank?’
‘How should I know? All I said was come see. We gottem Yank. It could be 1917 all over again.’
The second tailor fixed Cal with one squinting eye, looking up at him.
‘And how many you boys are over here?’
‘I don’t know, a few dozen I guess.’
‘A few dozen! My Gott. Last time they sent whole regiments! How you expect to lick Hitler with just a few dozen?’
Cal did not want to say it. He was getting heartily sick of stating the obvious, but he said it all the same. ‘We’re not actually in the war, you know.’
‘Not in the war! Young man, everybody is in this war! You tink Hitler will stop at Irish Sea? You tink crazy Adolf stop at Atlantic Ocean? You tink the brownshirts turn around when they see Statue of Liberty? Scared off by big green woman mit the torch an’ the silly hat? Alla them Jews in Brooklyn-you tink the Nazis just gonna let ‘em be?’
‘Mo, Mo. Leave the boy be,’ said the first tailor. ‘Maybe he not here to invade France, maybe just want to buy a suit.’
‘So? Am I arguin’? I was only askin’.’
‘That’s right,’ said Cal, getting a word in edgeways.