I have my routine duties, he decided. I don’t have time for any of these harebrained adventures, this sending of Einsatzkommandos after Abendsen. My hands are full greeting German sailors and answering coded radiograms; let someone higher up initiate a project of that sort—it’s their business.

Anyhow, he decided, if I instigated it and it backfired, one can imagine where I’d be: in Protective Custody in Eastern General Gouvernement, if not in a chamber being squirted with Zyklon B hydrogen cyanide gas.

Reaching out, he carefully scratched the notation on his pad out of existence, then burned the paper itself in the ceramic ashtray.

There was a knock, and his office door opened. His secretary entered with a large handful of papers. “Doctor Goebbels’ speech. In its entirety.” Pferdehuf put the sheets down on the desk. “You must read it. Quite good; one of his best.”

Lighting another Simon Arzt Number 70 cigarette, Reiss began to read Doctor Goebbels’ speech.

After two weeks of nearly constant work, Edfrank Custom Jewelry had produced its first finished batch. There the pieces lay, on two boards covered with black velvet, all of which went into a square wicker basket of Japanese origin. And Ed McCarthy and Frank Frink had made business cards. They had used an artgun eraser carved out to form their name; they printed in red from this, and then completed the cards with a children’s toy rotary printing set. The effect—they had used a high-quality Christmas-card colored heavy paper—was striking.

In every aspect of their work they had been professional. Surveying their jewelry, cards, and display, they could see no indication of the amateur. Why should there be? Frank Frink thought. We’re both pros; not in jewelry making, but in shopwork in general.

The display boards held a good variety. Cuff bracelets made of brass, copper, bronze, and even hot-forged black iron. Pendants, mostly of brass, with a little silver ornamentation. Earrings of silver. Pins of silver or brass. The silver had cost them a good deal; even silver solder had set them back. They had bought a few semiprecious stones, too, for mounting in the pins: baroque pearls, spinneis, jade, slivers of fire opal. And, if things went well, they would try gold and possibly five– or six-point diamonds.

It was gold that would make them a real profit. They had already begun searching into sources of scrap gold, melted-down antique pieces of no artistic value—much cheaper to buy than new gold. But even so, an enormous expense was involved. And yet, one gold pin sold would bring more than forty brass pins. They could get almost any price on the retail market for a really well-designed and executed gold pin… assuming, as Frink had pointed out, that their stuff went over at all.

At this point they had not yet tried to sell. They had solved what seemed to be their basic technical problems; they had their bench with motors, flex-cable machine, arbor of grinding and polishing wheels. They had in fact a complete range of finishing tools, ranging from the coarse wire brushes through brass brushes and Cratex wheels, to finer polishing buffs of cotton, linen, leather, chamois, which could be coated with compounds ranging from emery and pumice to the most delicate rouges. And of course they had their oxyacetylene welding outfit, their tanks, gauges, hoses, tips, masks.

And superb jewelers’ tools. Pliers from Germany and France, micrometers, diamond drills, saws, tongs, tweezers, third-hand structures for soldering, vises, polishing cloths, shears, hand-forged tiny hammers… rows of precision equipment. And their supplies of brazing rod of various gauge, sheet metal, pin backs, links, earring clipbacks. Well over half the two thousand dollars had been spent; they had in their Edfrank bank account only two hundred and fifty dollars, now. But they were set up legally; they even had their PSA permits. Nothing remained but to sell.

No retailer, Frink thought as he studied the displays, can give these a tougher inspection than we have. They certainly looked good, these few select pieces, each painstakingly gone over for bad welds, rough or sharp edges, spots of fire color … their quality control was excellent. The slightest dullness or wire brush scratch had been enough reason to return a piece to the shop. We can’t afford to show any crude or unfinished work; one unnoticed black speck on a silver necklace—and we’re finished.

On their list, Robert Childan’s store appeared first. But only Ed could go there; Childan would certainly remember Frank Frink.

“You got to do most of the actual selling,” Ed said, but he was resigned to approaching Childan himself; he had bought a good suit, new tie, white shirt, to make the right impression. Nonetheless, he looked ill-at-ease. “I know we’re good,” he said for the millionth time. “But—hell.”

Most of the pieces were abstract, whirls of wire, loops, designs which to some extent the molten metals had taken on their own. Some had a spider-web delicacy, an airiness; others had a massive, powerful, almost barbaric heaviness. There was an amazing range of shape, considering how few pieces lay on the velvet trays; and yet one store, Frink realized, could buy everything we have laid out here. We’ll see each store once—if we fail. But if we succeed, if we get them to carry our line, we’ll be going back to refill orders the rest of our lives.

Together, the two of them loaded the velvet board trays into the wicker basket. We could get back something on the metal, Frink said to himself, if worse comes to worst. And the tools and equipment; we can dispose of them at a loss, but at least we’ll get something.

This is the moment to consult the oracle. Ask, How will Ed make out on this first selling trip? But he was too nervous to. It might give a bad omen, and he did not feel capable of facing it. In any case, the die was cast: the pieces were made, the shop set up—whatever the I Ching might blab out at this point.

It can’t sell our jewelry for us… it can’t give us luck.

“I’ll tackle Childan’s place first,” Ed said. “We might as well get it over with. And then you can try a couple. You’re coming along, aren’t you? In the truck. I’ll park around the corner.”

As they got into their pickup truck with their wicker hamper, Frink thought, God knows how good a salesman Ed is, or I am. Childan can be sold, but it’s going to take a presentation, like they say.

If Juliana were here, he thought, she could stroll in there and do it without batting an eye; she’s pretty, she can talk to anybody on earth, and she’s a woman. After all, this is women’s jewelry. She could wear it into the store. Shutting his eyes, he tried to imagine how she would look with one of their bracelets on. Or one of their large silver necklaces. With her black hair and her pale skin, doleful, probing eyes, wearing a gray jersey sweater, a little bit too tight, the silver resting against her bare flesh, metal rising and falling as she breathed.

God, she was vivid in his mind, right now. Every piece they made, the strong, thin fingers picked up, examined; tossing her head back, holding the piece high. Juliana sorting, always a witness to what he had done.

Best for her, he decided, would be earrings. The bright dangly ones, especially the brass. With her hair held back by a clip or cut short so that her neck and ears could be seen. And we could take photos of her for advertising and display. He and Ed had discussed a catalog, so they could sell by mail to stores in other parts of the world. She would look terrific… her skin is nice, very healthy, no sagging or wrinkles, and a fine color. Would she do it, if I could locate her? No matter what she thinks of me; nothing to do with our personal life. This would be a strictly business matter.