*
‘Charlie, I’m not going to stop for another of those bastards. Lean out the window an’ wave your gun at him, and don’t drop it. Maybe he’ll get out of the way.’
Another day, another dollar, isn’t that what the Yanks say? In our case it was the same bleeding day, and likely to cost us another bleeding dollar. There was another vehicle parked on the roadside, and I could see someone in the road trying to wave us down. I couldn’t make out if they were civvy or military. When I could see I told him, ‘No. We know this guy. It’s Tommo, remember? He sold you that house in Stuttgart.’
Les gave me a warning look as we slowed, but it was too late. James had already picked it up.
‘What’s that, Les? Are you buying a bit of old Germany? Fallen in love with the place so quickly that you’re already planning to move in as soon as the shooting stops?’
It was the only time I saw Les properly embarrassed.
‘Just a little free enterprise, Major. Someone like me doesn’t get that many chances.’
‘No offence meant.’
‘None taken, sir.’
But you didn’t have to be a mind-reader to work out that some moral judging had gone on there, and Les hadn’t come out of it as clean as he’d like.
‘My cousin used to have a place in Stuttgart before the war, but he was bombed out of it. Perhaps you’d rent yours out to him afterwards, if he wanted to come back.’
‘I’ll think about it, sir,’ Les told him. It was a way of saying No ruddy fear, without face being lost all round.
‘Thank you, Raffles.’
Tommo strolled over. He looked far from comfortable himself. I expect it was something about being out in the daylight. What made it worse was that Pete lounged nonchalantly in the front passenger seat of their jeep, and that Alice’s Restaurant was on the back seat. We drew up alongside them. I opened the door. Pete grinned wickedly at me. Alice’s head was buried in her coils; I don’t know whether she was looking at me and grinning, or no. The Major stuck his head between ours. That made it a five-way conversation, which didn’t always make complete sense.
I asked Pete, ‘Why have you got the snake with you?’
‘Someone knocked the case over at Blijenhoek. She escaped and bit the pianist halfway through “Moonlight in Vermont”. Everyone was very pissed off.’
‘Pianist pissed off?’
‘I expect so. Dead, also. This snake doesn’t goddam miss. Should have been a goddam sniper. Either snake goes, or snake dies. Tommo made some promise to some dead Major in England that he looks out for the snake. We’re looking for what’s left of a zoo. They got them in Bremen, Hamburg and Berlin.’
‘No zoo in Berlin,’ I told him. ‘We bombed the fuck out of it.’
‘That’s good. They got Russians in Berlin soon. I don’t want to be around no Russians; they won’t like fellows like me.’
The Major asked, ‘Tell me about Les’s house: this buying and selling lark. Anything in it for me? Some bijou gingerbread house on the edge of a Bavarian forest would do; somewhere to take the girlfriend for a dirty weekend.’
Tommo took him at his word.
‘I expect that I could fix you up, sir, given a few days. Furnished or unfurnished?’
‘The former, I expect. Is this quite legal?’
‘Why does everyone ask me that?’ Tommo bleated.
‘Your reputation precedeth you, I expect,’ I told him. ‘Why did you stop us?’
‘To bring you the news, courtesy of the new Polish American Forces radio network.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Me and Pete. The real estate business is too easy: too tame. We’re going to start a commercial radio station.’
‘I’m interested in business,’ the Major told them. ‘But what does commercial mean in that context?’
‘It’s financed from its own income.’
‘And that is?’
‘Small-ads – like the front page of the London Times: that and the accumulating values of its registered assets.’
‘It has a lot of those, does it?’ From Les.
‘Mainly properties in Germany and England. It’s all tied up. I’m not as well off as people imagine. Not like Pete here.’
The Major asked Tommo, ‘How much would it cost for me to catch up with the rest of you?’
‘Five hundred quid.’
‘Is that what you charged Private Raffles here?’
‘And Charlie,’ said Les. ‘He’s bought a small estate near Frankfurt.’
James didn’t say anything to me, just gave me a big reproachful look. All wet eyes and turned-down mug. It didn’t move me, but I told him, ‘Didn’t think you’d be interested, sir.’
Tommo told him, ‘Les paid a lot less, and Charlie a lot more. Charlie bought a lot more. He’s got an estate as big as your Hampstead Heath. But to answer your question properly: no, they didn’t pay the same pro-rata I’m offering you; they paid less. There’s different rates for officers: higher rates.’
‘Charlie’s an officer.’
‘Wasn’t when I met him; an’ he don’t look like one now. Looks like some sort o’ gypsy.’
‘Thanks, Tommo.’
‘Don’t mensh. I don’t suppose you want a snake?’
‘Thank you, but no. Why did you flag us down?’
And: ‘How did you know we were on this road?’ That was Les.
‘A clever friend with friends, who owed me. They triangulated on your last broadcast, and we worked it out from there. We been waiting here a couple of hours. I fill my pants every time I hear a plane go over. I was never meant to be this close to a real war . . . and I told you, we flagged you down to give you the news.’
‘What news?’
‘That you’re hot. Someone in the dirty circle has put the word round. There’s a price on you. Three grand no questions to the man who brings home your head. All the seriously bad guys are talking about it. A year ago I would have thought about it myself.’
‘Thanks again, Tommo.’
‘You know some scruffy Lieutenant called David Clifford? A bit of an older guy?’ Pete asked me.
‘Yes.’
‘Good guy or bad
