palatial marble bathroom with gold fixtures. “This will have to do, I suppose,” McGarvey said in passable German. He tipped the man five hundred francs, and handed him another five thousand. “Change this into German currency, would you, I didn’t have time at the airport.”
“Yes, sir,” the impressed manager said with a slight bow and he left.
McGarvey locked his laptop in the room safe then made two telephone calls. The first was to the Credit bank where he made an appointment for 2:00 p.m. with the business accounts manager Herman Dunkel. The second was to Leipzig’s largest Mercedes dealer, whose number he got from the telephone book, and made an appointment with a salesman for 3:00 p.m.
The hotel day manager returned with an envelope filled with deutchmarks while McGarvey was changing into a dove-gray business suit.
“It comes to one thousand six hundred and—”
“Just lay it on the desk,” McGarvey said indifferently, as he knotted his silk Hermes tie.
“If there’s anything else I can do for you, Herr Allain, please inform me.”
McGarvey turned and gave him a hard stare. “Not now.”
“Yes, sir,” the manager said, again with a slight bow and he left.
When McGarvey was finished dressing, he went downstairs to the atrium bar where he had a half-bottle of good Riesling and a Wienerschnitzel with spaetzle and dark bread. Afterward he had coffee and a cognac and signed for the bill, and by 1:40 p.m. he climbed into a taxi and ordered the driver to take him to the Credit bank’s main branch on Ritterstrasse near the opera house.
The city was being renovated from the ground up after forty-five years of communist rule in which the place had deteriorated badly. Traffic was heavy, and every second car it seemed was a Mercedes or a BMW. Shop windows displayed goods from all over the world, and the stinking pall of coal smoke that had hung like a cloud over the city for so long was finally beginning to clear away.
Herr Dunkel, who’d been mildly cool on the telephone, practically fell over himself as he escorted McGarvey into his office. “Let me tell you how pleased I am to meet you, Herr Allain,” he said. “Your letter of credit arrived just an hour ago.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” McGarvey said. “I’d like to begin conducting my business as soon as possible.”
“What is your business, sir?”
“Exporting automobiles.”
“To what country or countries?”
“Latvia.” “I see. And what type of automobiles would you be interested in, Herr Allain?”
“Mercedes, of course,” McGarvey said. “At low volumes, at first. I think an initial order of two units might be profitable.”
The bank manager opened a folder, and looked at the single piece of paper it contained. “Would this be your total capital for this venture?”
“No.”
“Forgive me, Herr Allain, for belaboring this point. But two Mercedes automobiles, plus shipping and export fees, could, depending on the models of course, exceed this amount.”
McGarvey got a pen and slip of notepaper from the manager, and wrote down a nine digit number. “This is an account at Barclay’s on Guernsey. The code phrase is variable. You will not use my name, but you may verify an amount not to exceed one million pounds sterling, an addition to this letter of credit.”
“May I see your passport?”
McGarvey handed it over. The manager studied it for a moment, comparing the photograph to McGarvey’s face, then handed it back.
He picked up his telephone and asked his secretary to ring up Barclay’s Bank. The call went through immediately, and within ninety seconds McGarvey’s account was verified.
“How may this bank be of service to you?” Dunkel asked, cautious now, but extremely interested.
McGarvey had purposely brought too small a letter of credit so that the banker he dealt with would have to verify the much larger amount. It was less flashy that way. Germans instinctively mistrusted flash.
“You can act as my banker, of course. Transferring funds, establishing my credit. And I expect you may be of value in expediting the necessary licenses.”
“Yes, we can do all of that,” Dunkel said. “But one final question. Why did you chose Leipzig to do your business? Why not Stuttgart where the home office of Mercedes is located?”
“This is a delicate subject, Herr Dunkel, may I be frank?” McGarvey asked.
“By all means.”
“Businessmen in Stuttgart, and Munich, and Frankfurt-am-Main have a reputation for being rigid, sometimes overly so. While here, in what was once the GDR, that unbending, unimaginative attitude has not yet developed.”
Dunkel smiled knowingly. “Sadly it is happening here too, Herr Allain. Perhaps it’s unavoidable.”
“Perhaps,” McGarvey said.
“Now, who do you plan on doing business with?” Dunkel asked, straightening up. “Mercedes Rossplatz.”
“Very good.” Dunkel wrote a brief note of introduction on his letterhead, put it in an envelope and handed it to McGarvey. “Ask to speak with Bernard Legler. He is the president of the company, and a very honorable man. The western sickness hasn’t affected him yet.”
The banker had called ahead, because Bernard Legler was waiting on the main showroom floor when McGarvey showed up, and he didn’t bother reading Dunkel’s note. He was a very tall, rawboned man with craggy features who looked more like an ex-rodeo cowboy than a German businessman. But his broad smile seemed genuine. “You want to buy cars and I want to sell them to you, but I don’t know a lot of folks in Latvia who can afford to buy one.”
“I do,” McGarvey said.
“Well then, let’s do some business. What do you have in mind?”
Legler spoke German as if he were translating an American western movie. It was old hat in the west, but here it was the fad.
“The sport utility four-by-four.”
“How many of them?”
“Two for now. But I expect to eventually handle a dozen or more each month.”
“Equipment?”
“Load them up.”
“Cell phones, leather, the Bose stereo systems?”
“Everything,” McGarvey said.
Legler sat back, and gave McGarvey an appraising look. “I’ve got one coming in this afternoon that we can ship tomorrow. It’ll take me about two weeks to round up another. What kind of price did you have in mind?”
“Ten percent over invoice,” McGarvey said.
“Twenty.”
“Twelve,” McGarvey countered.
“Eighteen, and I handle all the export licenses, prepping and shipping to Riga. We’ll truck them up there.”
“Fifteen, and you can handle the-shipping but I’ll pay for it separately.”
“Throw in an extra five hundred marks per unit, and we have a deal,” Legler said.
“All right. How soon can you have the paperwork ready?”
“Where are you staying?”
“The Intercontinental,” McGarvey said.
“I can be there first thing in the morning.”
“I’m going to drive the first car to Riga myself. So I want it equipped with an extra spare tire, a couple of cans of gasoline, and the papers I need to cross the borders. The second car should be exactly the same.”
“Make it noon,” Legler said. “I’ll need a shipping address in Riga. We’ll truck it up there.”
“I’ll send it to you when I get there,” McGarvey said.
“On the way out, let my secretary make copies of your passport and driving license. We’ll need it for the
