Tommo leaned forward, and put his finger against a row of small white matchstick men painted on the glass at the top of her box. There were five of them, just under a neatly painted Restaurant sign. He said, ‘They call her Ace, now. She made five kills.’ He tapped the little men as if he was counting them off. At his third tap Ace struck savagely. Poison ran down the inside of the glass screen. I was surprised to see that it was clear. ‘I guess she don’t like me so much,’ he told me.
We shook hands. I was pleased to see him. The loose strands of my recent life were being drawn together on a muddy hillside in Holland. All I needed now was Grace walking in through the door, looking a million dollars and turning all the heads. She had that effect when she turned it on. There was a stack of black and white six-by-three girlie pictures on the table between Tommo and Les. They seemed to be all of the same girl. She had wavy, dark lustrous hair, and was putting her naked body through startling contortions on what looked like a dark velvet bed cover. She was stunning; somewhere between sixteen and twenty, I thought. I couldn’t tell. I asked, ‘Who is she?’
Les said, ‘Dunno. They’re American. I took them off that bloke who fell under the tank a few days ago. What do you think?’
I turned a few of them this way and that, as if I knew what I was doing. She looked as if she could be your next-door neighbour’s daughter. I said, ‘Nah: not my type. Sugar and spice. She won’t amount to much, will she? She’s too skinny, and her tits are too small.’
‘Charlie’s wrong,’ Tommo said simply, and, ‘I’ll buy. How many you got?’
‘Just these, and he never had the negs. There’s eighteen of them.’
‘A dollar each?’
‘Suits me,’ said Les. ‘Can I have that in coffee and fags?’
‘Sure thing; only I take my cut then.’
‘When didn’t you?’ I asked Tommo. ‘I still haven’t forgot what you were asking for bog paper during the bog-paper famine.’
‘Business,’ Tommo told me, ‘is business, even between friends.’
‘As one friend to another, how d’you get back over here? Weren’t you retiring and leaving the war? The Pink Pole just told me you could get in and out of Germany, even though we’re not there officially yet.’
I noticed he didn’t answer the first bit. He said, ‘You seen him, then? Cute, ain’t he?’
‘I wouldn’t call Pete cute. His eyes glitter like that bloody snake’s. So do yours come to that. The three of you were made for one another. What are you doing over there?’
‘Buying Germany before anyone else gets it. There are thousands of people ready to sell where they live, for protection, food and dollars. We got all three. You still got any of that money I changed for you last year? Money you can invest?’
‘About a thousand, say thirteen hundred quid. Why?’
‘Before I answer that, Charlie, let me point out a significant cultural difference in our backgrounds. To an American a quid is a hard piece of tobacco that you chew, and then spit out. It makes everything in your mouth the same colour as your shit.’
‘Pounds, then. Thirteen hundred pounds. Why did you ask me?’
‘I can get you a small hunting estate in the Odenwald for that.’ He pronounced it Urdenvald. ‘Lovely bloody country.’
‘What about the legal stuff? Deeds of ownership.’
‘Piece of piss. The Krauts are very good at that. They might be running out of bread and cheese and bullets, but they’re up to their ears in lawyers, and still keeping the paperwork going. I own a piece of Germany as big as New York State already. Perfectly legal.’
‘I bought a large town house from him,’ Les told me. ‘In Stuttgart. Eight bedrooms.’
‘Is it still standing?’
‘Yep,’ Tommo told us. ‘And what’s more, it’s insured against war damage now.’
‘What insurance company would be mad enough to insure houses in Germany against war damage?’
‘Mine would.’
‘Mine as in mine?’ I asked Tommo. ‘You have an insurance company?’
‘That’s right. Me and Lucky.’ I didn’t think that I really wanted to know who Lucky was. ‘It’s a reputable old Washington company. You don’t have to give me the money now. Just give me the nod.’
I laughed, and said, ‘Why not?’ We shook hands on the deal.
Tommo said, ‘Congratulations, Charlie. You now own an ill-used, but largely intact mansion – more of a large farm, really – in Morsberg, and about four hundred and twenty acres. Schloss Felgensee something or other; it’s all on the deed. There are two foresters’ cottages and a keeper’s lodge.’
‘How do you know all this is for true, Tommo?’
‘It’s what me and my officer are over here doing: acquiring property for the US Army.’
‘And you just help yourself at the same time?’
‘American tradition, son. It’s in our entrepreneurial nature.’
‘They don’t call it theft?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘Glad I met you again, Tommo.’ I raised my glass to him. I noticed that it was nearly empty. Ace rattled at me warningly. I decided that Ace was too masculine a name for something as bad-tempered as that. Inside my head I added an ‘l’ and an ‘i’, and found myself with Alice.
A few drinks later Tommo gave me a worried look. We were on our own. Les had wandered off. Tommo said, ‘I left you two kitbags to store for me. They safe?’
‘Locked in my car, locked in a garage, behind a safe house in London. It’s owned by the Major’s mob, whatever that is, and run by Les and his brothers: there are bloody hundreds of those. If they were Masons they’d have their own lodge.’
‘Like the K. It’s safe then?’
‘Absolutely. What’s in them?’
‘About two million bucks. Working capital . . .’
I blew alcohol all over Alice’s Restaurant.
