‘I’ve been seeing a lot of the Breslows,’ said Charles Stein, ‘because I want to keep an eye on what the little son of a bitch is doing.’

Billy Stein took a pair of sunglasses from his pocket and put them on. The lenses were corrected for his vision and in spite of the coloured glass they gave him a better look at the young woman across the room. She was stunning, he decided. He flicked a couple of pastry fragments from the front of the faded blue denim jacket and glanced down to be sure that the large gold medallion was visible in the unbuttoned front of his shirt. He was wearing his favourite boots-light brown suede from Italy with criss-cross laces all the way up the front to the knees. The young woman must have noticed the movement for she looked up from the menu. He caught her eye but she looked away quickly. ‘I thought you were getting to like him.’

‘I said he was a good businessman,’ said Charles Stein, while chewing. He waved one of the little minced pork dumplings in a horizontal movement to show that his son had got it wrong. ‘That doesn’t mean I like him.’ He dipped the second dumpling into the dish of soy and put it into his mouth. ‘Means I got to watch out for what he might try to pull.’

‘For instance?’ said Billy.

‘Did it ever strike you, Billy, that if Breslow could get his hands on all the documents we got out of the mine, he wouldn’t need me?’

‘He wouldn’t need any of us,’ said Billy, still giving some of his attention to the woman, who was now ordering a meal. Perhaps she was not waiting for some companion after all, thought Billy. It was unusual for a woman so stylishly dressed to take lunch over here in Chinatown; for her to have come here to lunch alone was unthinkable. Even so…

‘Right,’ said Stein. ‘He wouldn’t need Colonel Pitman, wouldn’t need me. Wouldn’t need any of “the Raiders” for anything at all. And that would suit him very well because he doesn’t enjoy having me looking over his shoulder, and interfering with everything he’s doing and planning.’

‘If he stole your papers,’ said Billy, ‘if he stole them and then didn’t pay you the money you need… ’ He tugged on the gold chain round his neck, and tightened his fist in anger. ‘I’d take that old Mauser pistol you brought home from Germany and blow him away.’

‘Now, now, Billy.’

‘You think I couldn’t do it, dad. You’re wrong. I took that old gun out into the desert last year and spent a little time learning how to handle it. That’s a wonderful pistol, that Mauser. You should see what I can do to a row of cans… ’

‘Breslow ain’t going to stand around like a row of tin cans, Billy. You forget any idea of rough stuff. I don’t even like to hear you talk that way. What would momma have said if she’d lived to hear her son talking like some cheap hoodlum?’

‘OK, dad, but what are you going to do to make sure he doesn’t rip us off?’

‘Well, I’ve been thinking of that, Billy. First, you’ve got to understand how much trouble we’ve gone to in order to prevent Breslow finding out where the files and papers and everything are hidden. It’s essential that we keep the location a secret from him and from anyone associated with him. And that goes double for that Brit!’

‘I forgot that you met the Brit. What was he like?’

‘You missed something, Billy,’ said Stein. He drained the last of the tea into his cup and then waved the teapot lid at the waitress to get more. ‘Boyd Stuart, he calls himself. What kind of faggot name is that? But he’s no faggot when it comes to weighing in; two hundred pounds at least, and I’d guess he knows how to handle himself, and never mind the fancy accent. About forty years old… the sort of face that makes it difficult to guess the age. Cunning! You could see it in his eyes.’

‘Sounds as if you like him even less than you like Breslow,’ said Billy Stein, who had long since grown used to his father’s extreme and unpredictable passions about the people he met.

‘Too Aryan for me,’ said Charles Stein. ‘I saw too many guys like him striding around in the POW cages with SS flashes on their collars.’

‘Did you ever stop to think, dad, that maybe… ’

‘I’m a racist,’ Charles Stein completed the sentence. He took one of the hot towels that the waitress had brought along with a fresh pot of jasmine tea and, lowering his head, buried his face in it for what seemed a long time. Billy Stein looked to see if the wonderful girl was watching his father’s ablutions and was relieved to see that she was giving all her attention to a plate of roast duck. ‘Yeah, I’m a racist,’ said Stein, emerging happily from the towel like a walrus surfacing for a fresh herring. ‘And it’s too late to change me now, Billy, so we’ve both got to put up with it.’

Billy nodded and retied the lace of his high boot.

‘Ideally,’ said Charles Stein, ‘we have to get photocopies, microfilm, microfiche or whatever the hell it’s called. Then we could show what we’ve got to any of these people, and still have the originals locked away and hidden.’

‘So why not?’ said Billy.

‘Sometimes I worry about you, Billy. Sometimes I wonder what is going to happen to all the stocks and the business investments and the nice little deal we got with that insurance broker in St Louis… Sometimes I wonder what is going to happen to all that when I finally take up my option on that small piece to turf we bought in Forest Lawn.’

‘Jesus, dad, don’t talk about that.’

Stein was mollified by his son’s horror at the prospect of losing him. ‘We can’t get that stuff microfilmed,’ he said, ‘because it would attract too much attention. Ask yourself how we’d go about it. We can’t just find some microfilm outfit in the yellow pages without a good chance they would blow the whistle on us as soon as they see what the stuff is all about.’

‘Buy a microfilm machine,’ said Billy. ‘What can it cost? A grand? Five grand? Not ten grand; and even that would be worth it when we are playing for the kind of telephone numbers you keep talking about. What did Breslow say-a hundred million dollars?’

‘No, it was me who said a hundred million dollars. Breslow played it all very close.’ He poured more tea. Billy put his hand over his cup to show he had had enough of it. ‘And who’d work the machine? Could you work it? Could I work it? No, it needs training to operate a thing like that.’

Charles Stein succumbed to the temptation of the last of the chicken noodles. There was a trace of scrambled egg-a bright yellow cushion under a sliver of chicken meat and a sauce-encrusted shrimp tail, the whole ensnared in a loop of fresh noodle. Chuck Stein levered his china spoon underneath and dashed a trace of soy upon it before savouring the combination.

He closed his eyes with pleasure. Only after he had swallowed it did he speak again. ‘You know I’m the only person who has been through all those documents. Colonel Pitman can’t read German-his French is OK but no German-and the other boys from the battalion don’t give a damn.’

‘It’s not something that interests me a great deal,’ said Billy, apologetically. ‘I read all those war books you used to bring home and tell me I ought to read, but it doesn’t grab me.’ Billy stole another glance at the girl. ‘If I was to tell you the honest truth, dad, I don’t even understand who won the war, or even who was fighting it.’ He looked at his father hoping that an explanation would be offered.

‘Yeah, well it’s easy,’ said Stein. ‘Hitler started killing the Jews, so the Jews came to America and built an atomic bomb so President Roosevelt could help them, but he dropped it on the Japanese.’

‘I never know when you’re kidding, dad.’

‘I’m never kidding,’ said Stein; he leant across the table. His sleeve went into the soy but he did not notice. ‘These documents are dynamite; you’d better understand that. If this English cat knows that I’ve been telling you what’s in these documents-all this stuff about Churchill talking with Hitler and offering him a sweet deal for a quick peace… well, he might get his orders.’