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“Robinsons,” Goldfarb said automatically.
“Right. See you at Robinsons, then, at half past five tomorrow.” The line went dead.
“What was that in aid of?” Naomi asked after David hung up, too.
“I don’t precisely know,” he answered. “Whatever it was, it was something the distinguished group captain”-he laced the words with as much sarcasm as he could-“didn’t care to discuss over the telephone wires. Which means, all too likely, it’s something that won’t stand the light of day.”
“Something to do with ginger,” Naomi said.
“I can’t think of any other business Roundbush is involved in that he doesn’t care to discuss over the telephone,” David said. “Of course, I don’t know all the business he’s involved in, either.”
“Can’t you stay away, then?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I wish I could, but you know it’s impossible as well as I do. I have to see what he wants-and see if I can talk him out of it.”
He got his chance the next evening, pulling up in front of Robinsons on his bicycle at exactly the appointed time in spite of a cold, nasty drizzle. When he went inside, he bought himself a whiskey-it didn’t seem a night for stout-and sat as close to the fire as he could get. He’d beaten Roundbush to the pub, which left him glowing with virtue-and hoping his superior wouldn’t show up.
But in Group Captain Roundbush came, dapper as ever, and sat down at the table with Goldfarb. “That’s not the worst idea anyone ever had,” he said, pointing to the whiskey, and ordered one for himself. When it came, he raised the glass high. “Here’s to you, old man.”
“You don’t need to butter me up, sir,” Goldfarb said. “Whatever it is you’ve got in mind, I’m probably stuck with it.”
“Now that’s a fine attitude!” Basil Roundbush said. “I’m about to offer the man an expense-paid holiday on the French Riviera-sounds all the better, doesn’t it, with the drips and trickles outside? — and he says he’s stuck with it. Plenty of chaps’d be happy to pay to go there, believe you me they would.”
“The German-occupied French Riviera?” Goldfarb’s shudder had nothing to do with the weather. “Yes, sir, that’s a splendid place to send a Jew. Why not pick one of your other chaps instead?”
“You’ll have a British passport,” Roundbush said patiently. “Or, if you’d rather, you can have an American one. Might even be better: plenty of gentiles in the States who look the way you do, so to speak. And you’re the right man for this job. You speak the Lizards’ language and you can get along in German with your Yiddish.”
“There is the small matter of French,” Goldfarb remarked.
“Small matter is right.” Roundbush remained imperturbable. “Anyone you need to talk to will speak German or the Lizards’ language or both. As I may have mentioned once or twice, we have a spot of trouble down there. Seems as if the Germans have got their claws into a chap who was a freelance operator who did a deal of business for us. Anything you can do to set things right will be greatly appreciated, on that you may rest assured.”
“What do you imagine I can do there that one of your other chaps couldn’t do a thousand times better?” Goldfarb asked.
“But, my dear fellow, you are one of our chaps,” Roundbush said. “You have a more personal interest in the success of your undertaking than anyone else we could send. Do you deny it?”
“I bloody well can’t deny it, not with you beggars soaring over my family and me like vultures over a dying sheep,” Goldfarb snarled. “You have the whip hand, and you’re not ashamed to use it.”
“You take things so personally,” Roundbush said. Unspoken but hanging in the air between them was, Just another excitable Jew.
“All right: I have an interest,” Goldfarb said. “What I haven’t got is any knowledge of your operation. How am I supposed to set it to rights if I can’t tell what’s right and what’s wrong?” That was a legitimate question. A not so legitimate thought tagged along behind it. If Roundbush gives me enough dirt about his pals, maybe I can bury them in it.
“I can tell you some of what you need to know,” Roundbush said. “I can also give you the names of people down there to ask. They’ll be able to tell you far more.” He signaled to a barmaid: “Two more whiskies, dear.” As soon as she’d gone off to fetch them, he turned back to Goldfarb. “So you’ll take it on, then?”
“What choice have I got?” David asked bitterly.
“A man always has choices,” Group Captain Roundbush replied. “Some may be better than others, but they’re always there.” Thanks so much, Goldfarb thought. Yes, I could stick a gun in my mouth and blow out my brains. That’s the sort you mean. Roundbush was going cheerfully along his own line of thought: “For instance, would you sooner carry a British passport or an American one?”
“With this accent?” Goldfarb shook his head. “No choice there. If I ever run into anyone who can tell the difference-and I might-I’d be made out a liar in less time than it takes to tell.”
“Not necessarily. You could be a recent immigrant,” Roundbush said.
“I wish I were a recent immigrant,” Goldfarb said. “Then you couldn’t be twisting my arm like this.”
“Not personally,” the senior RAF man agreed. “As I told you when we had our last discussion about your possibly leaving the country, though, I do have colleagues in the same line of work on the other side of the Atlantic. They might need your services from time to time. And, because they don’t know at first hand what a sterling fellow you are, they might be rather more importunate than I am in requiring your assistance.”
Goldfarb had no trouble figuring out what that meant. “They’re a pack of American gangsters, and they’ll shoot me if I talk back.”
Basil Roundbush didn’t admit that. On the other hand, he didn’t deny it, either. Instead, he turned the subject, saying, “Jolly good to have you on board again. I expect you’ll do splendidly.”
“I expect I’ll make a bloody hash of it-or I would make a bloody hash of it if I dared, if something dreadful wouldn’t happen to my family,” Goldfarb said. He knocked back his new whiskey, which the barmaid had brought while he and Roundbush were talking. She’d damn near plopped herself down in Roundbush’s lap afterwards, too. After coughing a couple of times, David asked, “Tell me something, sir: did you and your chums blow the ships from the colonization fleet out of the sky?”
He had, for once, succeeded in startling the normally imperturbable Roundbush. “Oh, good heavens, no!” the group captain exclaimed. “We can do a great many interesting things-far be it from me to deny that-but we have no satellites and no direct control over any explosive metal even here on Earth.”
Did he say no direct control because he wanted to imply indirect control? Very likely, Goldfarb judged. He wondered if the implicati
on held any truth. He hoped not. “Do you know who did attack the colonization fleet?” If you do-especially if it’s the Reich, I can pass that on to the Lizards. Doing Heinrich Himmler a bad turn was reason enough and to spare for going down to Marseille.
But Roundbush disappointed him by shaking his head. “Haven’t the foggiest idea, I’m afraid. Whoever did manage that one isn’t letting on. He’d be a fool to let on, but that hasn’t always stopped people in the past.”
“True enough,” David said. The trouble was, too much of what Roundbush said made too much sense to dismiss him out of hand as just a bloke who’d gone bad. From the standpoint of mankind at large-as opposed to the standpoint of one particular British Jew-he might not even have gone bad at all. Something else occurred to Goldfarb: “Did you have anything to do with the ginger bombs that went off over Australia and made the Lizards have an orgy?”
“I haven’t got the faintest notion of what you’re talking about, old man,” Roundbush said, and laid a finger by the side of his nose. That was a denial far less ringing than the one he’d used in connection with the colonization fleet. Goldfarb noticed as much, as he was no doubt intended to. With a chuckle, Roundbush went on, “Only goes to show there really may be such a thing as killing them with kindness.”
“Yes, sir.” The whiskey mounted to Goldfarb’s head, making him add, “That’s not how the Reich kills its Jews.”
“I fought the Reich,” Roundbush said. “I have no love for it now. But it’s there. I can’t very well pretend it’s not-and neither can you.”
“No, sir,” David Goldfarb agreed mournfully. “But Gottenyu, how I wish I could.”
“Another letter from your cousin in England?” Reuven Russie said to his father. “That’s more often than you usually hear from him.”
“He has more tsuris than usual, too,” Dr. Moishe Russie answered. “Some of his friends-this is what he calls them, anyhow-are going to send him to Marseille, to help them in their ginger-trafficking.”
