The other photographs seemed to have been taken later, although there were no dates. In all of them Kurt Oppenheimer wore a white shirt, a tie, and a coat. In only one of them was he smiling, and Jackson thought that the smile seemed forced. Jackson also thought that Kurt Oppenheimer looked very much like his sister, although he had his father’s thin, wide mouth. Jackson studied the photographs carefully, but made no attempt to memorize them. He tried to detect signs of brutality, or animal cunning, or even dedication, but all that the photographs revealed was a pleasant-faced young man, almost handsome, with light-colored, not quite blond hair, who looked quick and clever, but not especially happy.
Jackson put the photographs back into the envelope and unfolded the two sheets of paper. Both were covered with jagged, Germanic script written in dark blue ink. The heading was “My Brother, Kurt Oppenheimer.” The body of the two pages, like the heading, was written in German and began, “On the first of August, 1914, the day the terrible war began, my brother, Kurt Oppenheimer, was born in Frankfurt.”
The essay, for that was how Jackson came to think of it, went on to describe an uneventful, not particularly religious childhood composed mostly of school, sports, stamp collecting, and vacations in Italy, France, and Scotland. A paragraph was devoted to the death of the mother “in that sad spring of 1926 when Kurt was 11 and I was 7.” Their mother’s death, Leah Oppenheimer wrote, “was a deeply felt loss that somehow drew our small family even closer together.”
Leah Oppenheimer went on to recount how her brother had been graduated from a Gymnasium in Frankfurt, “where he was a brilliant student, though given to many high-spirited pranks.” From the Gymnasium he had gone on to attend the university at Bonn, “where he developed his deep interest in politics.” Jackson interpreted that to mean he had joined the Communist Party, sometime around 1933, when he was 19. From what Jackson had heard, the university at Bonn had been a rather stodgy place at that time, not much given to radical politics, although it had developed a nicely virulent case of anti-Semitism, which may have explained why Kurt Oppenheimer had wanted to chuck everything in 1936 and head for Spain and the Loyalist cause.
The elder Oppenheimer, according to his daughter, had had his hands full trying to convince his son that Spain wasn’t such a good idea. “The impossible political situation that had developed in our own country was my father’s telling argument,” she wrote. “Kurt agreed to return to Bonn to continue his studies, at least while Father dealt with his increasingly difficult business problems, which he solved in late 1936.” Jackson wondered if the zipper king had managed to get a good price for his business.
It was in early 1937 that Kurt Oppenheimer had left Bonn for the last time. Whether he had earned his degree his sister didn’t say. But it was then, she wrote, “that the three of us departed Frankfurt, in the dead of night, almost stealthily, forsaking our many friends, and journeyed to Switzerland.” For the next three years her brother had grown “increasingly unhappy, restless, and even bitter, especially in 1939 when Von Ribbentrop signed the evil pact with Russia. Although retaining his fierce ideals, Kurt grew ever more critical of the Soviet leaders while retaining, of course, his steadfast opposition to the Hitler regime.”
Jackson was growing impatient both with Leah Oppenheimer’s florid prose and with her brother’s quirky politics. He scanned the rest of the letter quickly. There wasn’t much. After the war had started in 1939, her brother had joined an organization that smuggled Jews into Switzerland. He had made a number of trips back into Germany which his sister described as being “fraught with peril, although my brother withstood these dangerous journeys with cool resolve and quiet bravery.”
Jackson sighed and read on. In 1940, just before Paris fell, Father Oppenheimer had decided to get to England while the getting was good. Between father and son there had been what Leah Oppenheimer described as a “terse debate,” but which Jackson interpreted as a shouting match. Father and daughter had packed off to London, leaving elder brother behind — a sad parting, Leah Oppenheimer wrote, where “the tears flowed unashamedly.” And that was the last they had heard from elder brother, except for a few letters that were, she said, “understandably guarded in content, but nevertheless brimming with confidence.” After that, Leah’s portrait of her brother ended abruptly except for a half page listing the names of Kurt Oppenheimer’s friends and acquaintances in Germany and their last known addresses.
Jackson sighed again, folded the two pages, and put them back into the envelope. It hadn’t been much of a dossier. Rather, it had been a younger sister’s romantic notions of her idealized brother. Jackson felt that she might just as well have been writing about the Scarlet Pimpernel. Well, perhaps she was. He only wished that she hadn’t developed such a wretched style.
He finished his drink, put the envelope away in his pocket, and headed for the elevator. On the fifth floor, he found room 514, opened it with a key, went in, moved over to the door that joined the two rooms, and tried it. It was unlocked. He opened it. A night-light was burning, In the large double bed was the dwarf, fast asleep. Next to the dwarf lay a brunette of about thirty who might have been rather pretty except for her smeared lipstick. She was also asleep and snoring, although not enough to complain about. Neither the dwarf nor the brunette seemed to have any clothes on.
Jackson went over to the bed and bent down until his mouth was only a few inches from the dwarf’s left ear. What came out of Jackson’s mouth came out half shout, half roar:
“Baker-Bates wants his money back!”
5
The dwarf, barefoot and fuming, but wearing his rich green dressing gown, stalked into Jackson’s room with a glare in his eyes and a scowl on his face. “You damned near frightened Dorothy to death,” he snapped.
“Poor Dorothy.”
“You didn’t have to yell in my ear. It made her cry. I can’t stand it when they cry.”
“What was her last name — Dorothy’s?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Is she gone?”
“She’s gone. What’s this about Baker-Bates? I don’t know any Baker-Bates.”
“Sure you do, Nick. Gilbert Baker-Bates. A British chappie. He dropped you and your fist man back into Romania with a hundred thousand bucks in gold.”
“He lied. It wasn’t anywhere near that much. More like fifty.”
“Still a tidy sum.”
The scowl left Ploscaru’s face. In its place spread some lines of what Jackson took to be apprehension or even fear. “He wants the money back?”
“Not really. They’ve written you off, Nick. You’re old hat. Ancient history.”
“Did he say that?”
“His very words.”
The dwarf relaxed, and the lines of apprehension — or fear — left his face, which reassumed its normal look of benevolent cunning. He studied Jackson for a moment. Then without a word he turned and, not stalking this time, went back into his own room. When he returned, he was carrying two glasses and a bottle. “Bourbon,” he said. “Bonded stuff. Green label. See?” He held up a bottle of Old Forester. Jackson realized that it was more than a bottle of bourbon. It was a peace offering, a mollifying gift that would help to smooth over some of the lies the dwarf had told him.
Ploscaru used a carafe of water to mix two drinks and handed one to Jackson, who was sitting in an armchair. The dwarf hopped up onto the bed and wriggled back. “How’d he get on to you — Baker-Bates?” Ploscaru tried to make it a casual question and almost succeeded.