‘I don’t like to see you worried, dad. Is there anything I can do?’
‘There’s a direct flight… I don’t like what’s going on here, Billy. Colonel Pitman is going to have to hear about it, and I never like putting this kind of thing in writing.’ He pulled his nose. ‘And it’s risky talking on the phone these days.’
‘It will be good for you,’ said Billy. ‘A change of scene.’
While Billy picked his way through the heavy airport traffic his father made sure that he had enough cash and his credit cards for the trip. At last his son swung the car into the parking lot with an arrogant skill he had developed as a car park attendant during his college days.
‘Looking forward to seeing the colonel again? You like him, I know. Stay through the weekend, dad. Have a good time.’
‘I always get a real kick out of seeing him,’ said Stein. ‘He’s an old man. He’s running out of time, you know. A great man, Billy. Make no mistake about that.’ He puffed on the cigar.
Billy switched off the engine and looked at his watch to see how long there was before his father’s plane departed. ‘Say, dad, if this colonel of yours was such a gung-ho hero, how come that when he got out of West Point they didn’t send him to the Rangers, or the Airborne, or the Green Berets or something?’ He flinched as he recognized a sudden anger in his father’s face. But his attempt to modify this implied criticism only made matters worse. ‘What I mean is, dad, why the heck did the colonel end up running some little quartermaster trucking battalion?’
Charles Stein took his son’s arm in a grip that caused him pain. ‘Don’t ever let me hear you say anything like that again. Not ever. Do you understand?’ Stein spoke in a soft and carefully measured voice. ‘Do you think you’d have had your fancy Princeton education and your T-bird and your Cessna and your yacht, if it wasn’t for the colonel and what we risked our necks for back in 1945?’
‘Jesus, dad. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything.’
In a moment the anger had passed. ‘It’s time I told you all about it, Billy. I’m not getting any younger and the colonel has been a lot on my mind lately. Last night I dreamed about the night we stole those trucks.’ And Stein told his son about the fateful night when he went to the colonel suggesting the ways in which the paperwork could be fixed so that the trucks carrying the bullion and treasures would be documented as if they were taking rations to an artillery company right near the Swiss border. Billy listened with amazement.
‘Was it your idea, dad? You never told me that.’
‘I never told you half of it, Billy. Maybe I should have told you a long time ago. Yes, Colonel Pitman was in town when our secret orders arrived from Third Army. Pitman was a major then, I was the orderly room corporal. A motorcycle messenger brought an envelope marked with the rubber stamp of Army HQ and plastered with secret marks. The guy on the bike wanted his receipt signed by Pitman. I couldn’t tell him that Pitman was in town with a bottle of scotch I’d got for him and planning to screw a young fraulein he’d met that morning in the mayor’s office. It was wartime. The battalion was on alert and ready to move. For being off base and fraternizing with a German civilian he would have been court-martialled.’
‘You forged his signature?’
‘That’s what orderly room corporals are for.’
‘You saved his career, dad.’
‘And he saved my ass a few times too, Billy. We made a good team.’
‘And what were those secret orders?’
Stein laughed. ‘Secret orders from Army HQ. The war in Europe was in its final few hours. I was convinced it contained orders shipping us stateside and I wanted to be the first one to know.’ He leaned closer to his son, ‘I figured I might be able to get a couple of bets on before the official announcement was made.’ He laughed again, ‘So I was mighty disappointed when I read we were to supply transport for an escort detail. Just a milk run from Merkers to Frankfurt, I remember thinking at the time. Little did I realize that I was holding in my hand a piece of paper that would net me several million dollars.’
The two men sat silent in the car for several minutes, then Stein said, ‘Just look at the time. We’d better get moving or I’ll miss the flight to Geneva and find myself changing planes in Paris or London or something.’
‘Take care of yourself, dad.’
‘You bet your ass I will, Billy,’ said Charles Stein.
It was Friday, May 25, 1979.
7
On that same Friday in London, Boyd Stuart and Jennifer had lunch at Les Arcades, a small brasserie in Belgravia. There was an auction at Sotheby’s across the street and the tables were crowded. Jennifer Ryden-as she now preferred to be known-wore a pale fur coat. Her eyes were bright, her lipstick perfect and her skin glowing with health. She was the same bright, beautiful girl that Boyd Stuart had fallen so madly in love with, but now he could see her with clearer vision.
‘Daddy has been quite wonderful!’
‘Sending me to California, you mean?’
‘Isn’t that supposed to be secret?’ she said. There was no mistaking the rebuke. She stabbed a small section of dry lettuce and put it into her tiny mouth. She never ate food that might dribble down her chin or drip on to her clothes That was how she always managed to look so groomed and clean.
‘I have no secrets from you, Jennifer,’ said Boyd Stuart.
She looked up from her plate and smiled to acknowledge that her ex-husband had won the exchange. ‘You haven’t come across that inlaid snuff box, I suppose?’
‘I’m sure it’s not in the flat, Jenny.’
‘Nor the gold watch?’
‘No,’ said Stuart.
‘It’s inscribed “to Elliot”… an old watch, a gold hunter.’
‘You’ve asked me a dozen times, Jenny. I’ve searched high and low for it.’ In response to Stuart’s signal the waiter served coffee.
‘I’ve brought a list,’ she said. She reached into her Hermès bag for a small leather pad and gold pencil. He had always dreaded those little lists which she presented to him. There were shopping lists and reading lists, appointment lists and, only too often, lists of jobs that others had to complete for her. ‘I found the photo of mummy in the silver frame,’ she said, carefully deleting that from the list of possessions before passing it to him. ‘Jennifer Ryden’ was engraved at the top of the sheet of watermarked paper and the handwriting was neat and orderly without errors. ‘It’s the gold watch that is most important,’ she added. ‘That detective story book is from the London Library; if we can’t find it, I shall simply have to pay them… Did you look in the tiny drawer in the dressing table, the one that sticks?’
‘I’ve told you, Jennifer, if you don’t believe I’m capable of finding these odds and ends, you can look around yourself. You still have your key.’
She gave a theatrical shiver. ‘Seeing all the furniture and things would bring all the horrors back to me.’
‘You’ve taken most of the furniture,’ said Boyd Stuart, ‘and the bedroom and the hall have been redecorated.’
‘It was daddy’s watch. He’s so attached to it. I do wish you would have a proper look.’ She tipped her head to one side and gave him her most winsome smile.
‘Are you meeting someone?’
She swung round to see out of the window. There was a spindly young fellow waiting outside. He looked like the sort of young man Jennifer had always had to carry parcels, hail taxis and hold umbrellas over her. His checked cap was pulled low over his eyebrows and he wore a regimental tie and a well-cut suit. He saw Jennifer getting to her feet and waved to her. She didn’t wave back. ‘Now don’t just say you’ll look for them,’ she said, touching the sheet of paper, ‘and please arrange for someone to forward my mail.’