Stuart’s visitor was wearing a dark blue flannel blazer with regimental buttons and a motoring-club badge on the pocket. His hair was long and straight and so was his nose. Even without the accent and the clothes, there would be no mistaking him for anything other than what Jennifer called ‘ Eton and Harrods’.
‘There would in fact be considerable advantages if this fellow actually made the film in England,’ said the visitor. He looked round the dingy little office which the department had provided for this meeting. It was his first experience of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service.
‘Spare me all that sales talk,’ said Boyd Stuart wearily. ‘Just tell me about Max Breslow.’ From somewhere at the back of the building there came the sound of someone practising scales on an out-of-tune piano.
‘Not just the government allowances that all films can get, but special tax deals can be arranged if he uses British crews and British studios.’
This was the right man to send, noted Stuart approvingly. No one could doubt this lad’s pitch was anything but sincere. He wondered how much they had confided in him before sending him. ‘How old is Breslow? What’s he know about the film industry?’
‘He’s old enough to set up a film,’ said the young man with a smile He poured himself some more tea from the teapot on the desk. ‘He’s a businessman. He’s put together a couple of small productions in New York using front money from Germany and then sold them to television on the strength of the rough assembly. He’s got good contacts in Germany.’
‘Television?’
‘Television here in America, but cut into a feature film for Europe and Asia. It’s done quite a lot nowadays.’
‘Only two films?’
‘Only two here but he’s produced a dozen or more cheapies in Europe, mostly in German studios. He works with an executive producer who stays with the movie while Breslow goes after the money boys.’ He drank some tea and then said, ‘Breslow isn’t an old time movie mogul. He’s not a Goldwyn or a Cohn. You won’t meet any stars sipping champagne round his pool. He doesn’t live in Beverly Hills or Bel Air. He has a modest little condominium somewhere out near Thousand Oaks on the way to Ventura and shares his pool with a few neighbours. No, Breslow is not a movie man. You only have to talk to him for five minutes to discover that. He couldn’t distinguish a zoom lens from a Coke bottle, and he’s perfectly willing to admit it.’ The young man stretched his feet out and propped his teacup and saucer on his chest. Doubtless it was a mannerism copied from some elderly tutor, a rich uncle or an ambassador, thought Stuart. ‘You can see if you agree. I’ve fixed an invitation to dinner for you chez Breslow tomorrow. He thinks you represent a firm with money to invest in films.’ The piano exercises paused for a mercifully long time, then started from the beginning once more.
‘Breslow’s in his fifties… a well-preserved sixty perhaps. I’m not trained for the cloak-and-dagger stuff.’ The visitor smiled but, getting no response to his smile, continued. ‘Quite tall, lots of hair, no sign of going grey. Good firm handshake, if that’s anything to go by, and very friendly.’
‘Has anyone put him on the computer?’
The visitor drank his tea and looked at Stuart. In Washington they had hinted that he was going to meet one of the SIS’s best agents but the young man found Boyd Stuart older, wearier and far less polished than he had expected. ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘that’s something I’m not supposed to know about, but I’d say it’s rather unlikely.’
‘Why unlikely?’
‘My briefing was rather circumspect, old chap, but I gathered that nothing is so far being communicated to our American friends. And we both know that anything that goes through the Bonn computer will be known in Washington within twenty-four hours.’
Stuart nodded and concluded that his visitor was less idiotic than his manner would indicate. ‘Have some more tea,’ he said, ‘and tell me what else you got out of him.’
‘You brought this with you, I suppose,’ said the visitor, watching the tea being poured. ‘It’s a damned funny thing, I buy the self-same brand of English tea in my supermarket in Washington and it never tastes the same.’
‘You think he’s going to make the film?’
‘He didn’t seem to be in a great hurry.’
‘I heard he has a script.’
‘It’s still not right, he says.’
‘Where is the front money coming from?’
‘He says it’s all his own.’ The visitor scratched his chin. ‘I think he’s fronting for someone. I don’t know what you’re up to with this fellow but I’d advise caution.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That your Porsche outside?’ It was a casual question. Too casual.
Stuart laughed. ‘What a hope! Back in London I spend most of my spare time on my back under a 1963 Aston Martin.’
The young man came to life. ‘A DB4! You lucky dog. In Washington, I’ve picked up a Sunbeam Tiger fitted with an American V8 engine but one of the bearings is giving me trouble. It’s all in pieces at the moment… That’s one of the reasons I cursed the orders that brought me here to the coast. You should see my garage-bits of the engine all over the place. If my wife goes in there and trips over one of those bowls in which I’m soaking the valves… ’ He pulled a face to indicate the pain it would cause him. ‘Not yours, eh, that Porsche?’
‘Which bloody Porsche?’
‘I saw it at the airport when I arrived. It was parked in the hotel car park. Then yesterday I saw it cruising slowly down Sunset Boulevard when I was talking with our pal Breslow.’
Boyd Stuart got up and walked to the window. ‘Where is it now?’
‘In a lot across the road, alongside the Pioneer Chicken.’
Stuart looked through the dark tinted glass which was advertised as a way of cutting air-conditioning costs. It gave the office privacy from passersby. Across the street he could just see the back of a black Porsche tucked behind a Chevrolet pick-up. Sitting inside the Porsche was Willi Kleiber, and behind the wheel Rocky Paz, a local strong-arm man turned car dealer. But even had Stuart seen their faces it would have meant nothing to him; he had never met either of them. ‘A Porsche,’ he said doubtfully. ‘Not exactly inconspicuous, is it?’
‘In this town it is. Look for yourself; the streets are full of them, especially black Porsches.’
‘In that case perhaps you’re overreacting,’ said Stuart. ‘How can you be certain that this was the same car you saw? Did you get the licence?’
‘It’s an Illinois licence. And he’s got a hand-operated spotlight mounted behind the windscreen slightly off centre-it’s a 1978 Porsche 928. It’s the same car all right.’
‘At the airport, you say?’
‘When I got off the plane from Washington. It was a million to one that I should notice him, but I notice cars like that.’
‘Always the same man driving?’
‘Couldn’t see who was inside, I’m afraid. I thought it was one of your people, to tell you the truth.’
‘You’ve got the green Datsun at the kerb?’
‘Hertz; from the airport.’
‘Give me three or four minutes to get my car ready to go. Then get in your Datsun and take a ride round Palos Verdes Drive. You know where I mean? Let’s take a look at him. Would you do that for me?’
‘You bet I would! Do you really mean it?’
‘And keep going until we find a nice lonely stretch of road, without any filling stations or McDonald’s. We’ll shake an explanation out of him.’
‘Depend on me,’ said the young man, galvanized by new-found enthusiasm.
‘And pull this door locked when you leave.’
Boyd Stuart opened the door of the battered cupboard that held two brooms and some telephone directories and rattled around the wire coat-hangers to get his jacket. He put it on and said, ‘Wait a minute, though. Let’s do it another way. Why don’t you take my car? It’s a white BMW with dark tinted glass.’