I had flown there in the company’s scarlet-painted Avro York, as a passenger with a pilot I hardly knew. It was a jittery flight, and he flew in a jittery way: that was because I was unable to convince him that I wasn’t on board to check him out. I felt bilious as I came down the short step from the door under her great red wing.
Bozey enquired, ‘Are you supposed to be here, boss? Has the War Office lifted your banning notice?’
‘I don’t fucking care, Bozey. I wanted to see Germany again for some unaccountable reason . . . the bastards have called me up, and I may not get another chance. I just wanted another look at the last country that was really worth bombing.’
‘You’re not having a good day, are you?’
‘No, I’m not.’
He drove me out through the military entrance to avoid the civilian authorities. His three-legged dog Spartacus was in the rear footwell. Because Spartacus lacked a back leg, when he wagged his tail his whole rear end wagged with it, like a clipper ship rounding Cape Horn in a blow. When he got excited he pissed at the same time. It could get messy.
‘He’s pissing in your car,’ I told Bozey.
‘I expect he’s pleased to see you. It’s a good job jeeps have no carpets.’
‘It stinks.’
‘He probably thinks that about us, boss. I think I should take you somewhere for a few drinks before I give you the news.’
The flight had been so bad that I had forgotten my hangover.
‘I knew I was right to take you on, Bozey.’ But I also wondered what his news was.
He took me to the Leihhaus – that’s a Jerry word that means pawnshop. But it wasn’t a pawnshop; it was a nightclub that stayed open most of the day as well. It was called the Leihhaus because in the early days after the war there wasn’t anything you couldn’t buy or sell there. I remembered it well.
‘I’m surprised it’s still here,’ I told him. ‘Is this still the neutral zone?’
The neutral zone had been a triangular scrape of land where the American, British and Russian zones of postwar Berlin all kissed . . . only whoever had drawn the maps had made sure that they didn’t quite join up, so there was a couple of acres that fell under nobody’s jurisdiction. An American and a Russian I’d known had opened a nightclub on it. If you want to know more about that you’ll have to read another book.
‘No, they redrew the lines after we all made up. It’s ours now.’ Ours.
‘So you don’t get the Russians in here any more?’
‘No, we get a load of French instead . . . though on the whole I preferred the Reds. The Yanks still come, but their service cops are a problem they never used to be.’
I smiled. In my day nothing seemed to be a problem at the Leihhaus.
‘I’m sure the club copes with that.’
‘Yes,’ Bozey said. ‘We does.’ Never mind the tense; the second possessive was interesting, wasn’t it?
We sat at what I could almost call my old table: a round scarred affair around which you could get six chairs at a squeeze. It was the only furniture I recognized. A newish hard-wearing brown carpet could only have come from the PX, and the other chairs and tables were lightweight chrome and steel things. It was late afternoon and the decent drinkers hadn’t begun to show yet. There was a small new dance floor with a parquet surface, and a bandstand for a sextet. In a corner a Negro pianist in a royal blue jacket played a blues tune, and crooned to himself.
I went over to him. I put the couple of dollars I’d hit Bozey for on the piano top, and asked, ‘You know “Blues for Jimmy Noone”? It means something for me.’
‘Sho boy; but you ken take them back.’ He moved effortlessly into the opening bars of ‘Blues for Jimmy’, but nodded at the banknotes. ‘You already pay me well enough, boss.’
‘Do I?’
‘Sho do, boss.’ He was milking the Uncle Tom for all it was worth. He was taking the mickey out of me, but I’d never be able to pin it on him. I took the money back to Bozey and sat down.
‘Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?’
That old pause exactly as long as the ‘String of pearls’ intro again . . . I still love it. Bozey held his hand out over the table for a shake. I took it not knowing quite what was going on.
He said, ‘Congratulations. You have a third share in the Leihhaus. I used that money you left behind. We had to do something with it after Tommo and the Red screwed up.’ Screwed up as in died.
There was something missing. ‘Who owns the rest?’
‘I have a third as well.’
There was still something missing. ‘Who has the rest?’
It was the first time I had ever seen him thrown slightly off line. He looked away, and then back at me. ‘Halton Air. I did a deal with the American military for cheap fuel, and used the difference in here. I needed some extra cash to restyle the place, and to get the girls in.’
At that precise moment I didn’t want to know about the girls. I asked him, ‘Does the Old Man know about this?’
This time it was a pause you could have run a hundred yards in.
‘No, boss. I thought maybe you could be the one to tell him.’
Bollocks.
Chapter Two
Lady be good
He took me upstairs and showed me one of the rooms. It was fine. It looked like an expensive hotel room from the 1930s. The furniture was light wood but had
