However, at the moment I desire the presence of my wife. I assure you she is well able to forego your-“
“Get out.” It wasn’t very loud.
“Why, Jesso. You have affrontery-”
Then Jesso roared again. “You think you can talk like that just because she’s your wife? Now scram!” Jesso went across the room fast, but by the time he got to the door it had closed again and the Baron was gone. He was bolting down the hallway like a puppet on too many wires, even forgetting about his hair, which had flapped out of place, showing the skull.
Chapter Eighteen
Jesso was down at eight and Hofer served his breakfast in the long room next to the solarium. He would eat till eight-fifteen, smoke a cigarette, take a walk in the garden. He would walk in the garden like a gentleman, because Kator never showed till after ten, when he had breakfast and read his mail. He wouldn’t be ready for business till close to eleven. That was two hours anyway, two hours to walk in the garden like a goddamn gentleman and maybe think everything over again.
Hofer came back.
“I don’t want anything and I’m not done, so stop popping in here or whatever you call it.”
“Herr Kator is waiting for you in his study.”
Jesso jumped up and made for the door.
“There is no need to interrupt your-”
“You finish it, Hofer.”
Kator looked cold and impersonal. He got up from his desk. He was ready for business.
“Get your coat, Jesso. We are leaving for Berlin.”
“Another dry run?”
“I am going with you. Please get your coat.”
The airport was far out of the city and the plane was Kator’s. It was a two-engine with a separate pilot’s cabin and the outside was painted gray, a thick gray, as if there used to be some other paint underneath. They climbed aboard and took off almost immediately.
Neither of them talked. Kator read papers that he took out of his brief case and wrote on a pad. Jesso looked out of the window. Once Kator went to the front and handed the pilot a message he wanted radioed, then sat down again as before. Jesso looked out of the window again. There wasn’t much to see. He’d got used to the constant overcast over Hannover and was almost surprised when the plane broke through the layer and there was sun. Underneath there was nothing but clouds.
That changed after a while. Occasionally the sun broke through underneath, and when the plane entered the traffic pattern over the Tempelhof airport the country below had a glassy brilliance.
The car that waited for them was Kator’s and the chauffeur wore the same livery as the one in Hannover.
“The Klausewitz address,” said Kator. “But go down the Charlottenburger Chaussee.”
“It’s out of the way, sir.”
“Just the same.”
When they came out of the Tiergarten the wide street ended on the Potzdammer Platz. Jesso recognized it from newsreels he’d seen.
“Take a slow swing past the gate,” Kator said. He leaned toward his window and looked across to the Russian sector.
“Homesick, Kator?”
“Historical interest, Jesso. Actually nothing has changed.”
“Where was your office, Kator-Unter den Linden? War Department, maybe?”
“No. A much smaller building. Not far from there.”
“And what a beautiful uniform you used to wear.”
Kator turned slightly, looked almost bored. “I never wore a uniform, Jesso.”
“That figures. And if you’re through sight-seeing, I’m dying to meet your friends. We going across?”
“I arranged the meeting in this sector. Your passport is hardly good enough for the East Zone-at this short notice.”
“How about yours?”
“I manage. Erich, the Klausewitz place,” and the big car slid off, back toward the West.
Kator turned in his seat, ready to talk. It turned out to be the briefing voice.
“This will pain you, Jesso, but for both our sakes I advise you to remain-uh-polite. In view of the stakes, you should be able to manage it. The man we shall meet does not have my leniency, nor can he be forced to adopt it. For the sake of our business and your well-being, please be warned.”
“I’ll be like a mouse.”
The Klausewitz address was nothing special, one of a row of clean-looking, modern apartment buildings. The apartment itself was on the top floor. There was no name on the door, just a number. And there was nothing unusual about the inside, just an apartment with several rooms. The only remarkable feature was a compact switchboard in the small entrance hall. The girl who had let them in sat down again and then one of the doors opened.
The man was nothing extra, either. He was small, dressed in gray, and if Jesso had tried to pick him out of a group of ten the next day he wouldn’t have been able to do it. The man bowed and closed the door behind them. He sat down on a metal chair next to a steel desk and waved at the couch by the wall. His desk chair stayed empty.
“Von Kator, I am pleased to see you.”
They bowed to each other. Jesso didn’t think they were friends.
“And Mr. Jesso?”
“Mr. Jesso, Mr. Delf.”
That was all, and then Mr. Delf put out his hand and took the folded sheet of onionskin that Kator held out. While Delf looked at the figures, a pencil in his right hand made monotonous spirals on a pad of paper by the edge of the desk.
“Have you microfilmed this?”
“No.”
“I admire you, von Kator. If it should be seen by someone else, who would worry about a piece of onionskin with rows of meaningless figures? But you will supply the meaning, yes, Mr. Jesso?” The left hand let the paper slide on the desk and the right hand kept making spirals.
Jesso frowned. “Look, I came to sell, but what are you paying with?”
Delf just kept spiraling.
“Money, of course. In the usual way.”
Kator said, “A detail I have not explained to Mr. Jesso. Mr. Jesso requires a lot of explaining.”
Jesso looked at Kator. With Delf in the room for contrast, Kator suddenly looked colorful and vital.
Kator went on: “You deliver the correct information and Mr. Delf will sign over the agreed amount. That completes the transaction.”
“How much is he paying?”
“I am paying five hundred thousand,” said Delf, “in dollars.”
Nobody batted an eye, so Jesso didn’t either.
“Who decided that?” Jesso sounded gruff.
There was a pause this time while Delf and Kator looked at each other as if they had never met.
Kator was hoarse. “Are you quibbling, Jesso?”
“I’m asking. I want to know how you got that price.”
“It is my price,” said Delf. He had stopped making spirals, and for the first time since he had said anything he had an identity. Jesso kept still for a moment, stuck his hands in his pockets.
