Imperial Hotel, London
August 30, 1933 CE
Haakon kept his gaze focused on Szilard while he leaned toward Gunnar and whispered, "I'll make contact. You're backup."
Gunnar gave him a barely perceptible nod.
Szilard and his two companions, the Texan Quilp and Corbett who was hanging on his arm, stopped underneath the omnipresent potted palms in the lobby. Corbett's vacant expression, floozy makeup, and clinging dress made her relationship to Quilp clear.
Haakon muttered, "Watch out for the woman. She's trouble."
Gunnar lifted an eyebrow. "You mean the one with the come-hither look and the rhinestone necklace hanging down to her waist? She looks dumber than the gum she's chewing."
"Just watch out for her. I tangled with her in 1066."
Surprise showed in Gunnar's eyes, but there was no time for more explanation. The targets were headed out of the lobby and Haakon heaved out of his chair to intercept them.
He strode to the trio using his best "I'm an American cowboy" walk. Szilard's face lit up at his approach, and he exclaimed, "Haakon, my friend! So good to see you made it to our meeting."
Haakon extended his hand and they shook. "Good to see you, too, Herr Doktor."
Szilard pushed his wire-framed glasses up his nose and turned to his companions. "Mr. Quilp, Ms. Corbett, this is one of my American friends that I told you about, Haakon Sigurdson. He's from Ok-la-homa." He tipped his head to one side. "Did I get that right, Haakon?"
"Exactly right, Dr. Szilard. He extended his hand to Quilp and let him have the best of the inevitable crushing contest.
Quilp gave him an appraising look. "Bob Quilp, here. Quilp Oil and Gas."
Haakon nodded and let his eyebrows tip upward as if he'd heard of the man's company and was impressed. "Mr. Quilp, Leo tells me you're from Texas."
"Fort Worth, born and raised, son. May as well call me Bob. Everybody else does. What part of Oklahoma you hail from?"
"Sweet Water, sir." Haakon gave him the name of Nell's hometown.
"You're name's Hawk-on? Never hearda that name afore. Whadda people call ya? Hawk?"
Haakon didn't cringe at the adulteration of his name. "Haakon would be fine, Bob."
Szilard pushed his glasses up his nose. "I'm so glad to see you, Haakon, but I thought your friend Nell would also be joining us this morning."
"She sends her regrets. She had a last minute opportunity to interview a curator at the University of London this morning."
Szilard's disappointment clouded his response. "Well, I understand the demands of research." A wan smile bent his lips as he said, "Perhaps another time, then."
"I'm sure she'd be delighted, Doctor."
"Please, I'm Leo to my friends."
"Leo, then." Haakon turned to Corbett and kept his face impassive. She offered a limp-wristed hand, so he smiled, bowed, and barely touched his lips to her wrist. "Madam, it's a delight to find such an innocent flower in this dreary place." If she was a flower, he was sure there was a serpent hiding underneath.
When he stood, her eyes glinted at him, but she tittered and said in a nasal Bronx accent, "Pleased, I'm sure."
"Are you enjoying London?"
"It's cold, and it rains all the time," she whined. "Boring, too. I like Texas better."
Szilard piped up. "There's so much to see and do here. Perhaps you and Mr. Quilp would permit me to be your tour guide later today?"
Quilp snapped, "I toldja. Call me Bob." His mouth turned down. "I ain’t got no time to be no tourist. I got business meetin's all day."
Charlotte's lower lip stuck out. "Please, Bob? It sounds like fun. I hate your boring old meetings."
Quilp rubbed his upper lip and regarded Charlotte like a naughty child. "Tell ya what. You all can do whatever you wanna do today. Go gallivantin' off with Leo here, and his buddy Hawk, too. Just be back and spruced up in time for dinner tonight. That okey-dokey with you, Leo?
Haakon took Leo's puzzled expression as his cue to play interpreter. "He's asking you if those arrangements are satisfactory, Leo."
Leo's face lit up. "A new expression. Wonderful! Yes, Bob. That's okey-dokey." He turned to Haakon. "Perhaps you and Nell could join us? Would that be okey-dokey?"
Haakon suppressed a grin. The guy could charm the antlers off a reindeer, that was for sure. "We'd be delighted, Leo, assuming Nell is finished with her interview."
Quilp snorted and glared at Szilard. "Ain't that nice. So, we here to deal or not?"
Szilard replied, "So hasty, my friend. We need to discuss, no? My English is not so good as yours, Mr. Quilp, and my American is even worse. I was hoping my friend Mr. Sigurdson, who speaks American and the King's English, can help us out, no?" He raised an eyebrow at Haakon. "If he is still willing to do us a favor, that is."
Haakon bowed, "I'm at your service, Dr. Szliard. Yours, too, Mr. Quilp."
Szilard looked to Quilp. "May he join us, sir? To help avoid misunderstandings due to language?"
Quilp's eyes rolled, but he said, "I toldja to call me Bob, Leo. I don't hanker to all that phony, fancy talk." He glanced at Haakon. "I also don't give two whips of a cow's tail who you bring, just so's we talk money. If Hawk here wants to tag along, fine by me."
Szilard's face exploded in a smile. "It's settled, then. Perhaps the hotel can find a private room where we can converse." He scuttled off to the front desk.
Quilp made a little ceremony of lighting a cigar. Once a cloud of noxious smoke surrounded him, he gave Haakon a narrow look. "Sigurdson sounds Swedish to me, Hawk. My grandad, he was born in England afore he came to America."
"My ancestry is Norwegian."
"Huh. Ain't that part of Sweden?"
"Not anymore." Haakon turned to Corbett. "What brings you to London, my dear?"
Quilp answered for her, "I brung her, that's what. Man's gotta have a woman or he ain't complete." He wrapped an arm around Corbett and squeezed, "Ain't that so, honey?"
She chewed her gum and gave him a vacant look. "Whatever you say, Bobby."
Quilp grinned. "That's my girl. I knew from the moment I saw her that I had to have her." He gave Haakon an appraising look. "You got a woman, Hawk?"
"I'm here with a companion. I wouldn't say she's my woman, though."
"Well, Hawk, if you ever want to go lookin', there's a house down in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun. That's where I found Charlotte, here."
The man was an animal, and a crude one at that. No wonder Europeans couldn't stand Americans. Haakon turned again to Charlotte. "What have you been doing here? Have you been to the Tower?"
"It's not a tower," she whined. "It's just some old fort." She paused to chew and, from her pained expression, apparently to think. "I saw where Anne Boleyn had her head chopped off."
"Have you tried any of the local food? Maybe at dinner? What did you have last night?"
"We had fried chicken at this fancy place Bobby took me. There was butlers and maids and—"
Quilp interrupted her. "They served up pheasant under glass, not fried chicken. Pay attention, Charlotte. We was at Clivedon, just outside London. Lotsa big shots was at that dinner, too. The German foreign minister was there, and so was the Prince of Wales, in-cog-neat-toe."
"It sounds delightful," Haakon said. Delightfully horrid. At least it confirmed what Nathan had reported.
Quilp blew smoke and looked around. "Where'd that varmint Leo go? You two stay here. I'm gonna track him down." He stomped away, and an analytical part of Haakon's mind noted his authentic cowboy walk.
Charlotte chewed on her gum while examining him head to toe. "You talk English good for a furriner."
Haakon hooded his eyes. "You do a good Bronx accent." Time to lay their cards on the table. "Nothing of Jorvik in your vowels."
"Whatid you say? What's Yore-Vick? Is it some Limey version of that smelly stuff for colds?"
Szilard and Quilp were at the front desk, talking to the clerk. Haakon snapped, "We don't have much time. Don't play games with me. Is that sleazy necklace your Timepiece?"
Her head gave a little jerk. "What did you say?" Her accent disappeared. The fake gems in her necklace glittered under her nervous fingers.
"You heard me. We can't have another screw-up like at Stamford Bridge."
Her eyes grew wide. "I thought I recognized you, even though it couldn't be you. I thought maybe you were an earlier instance of the one I met." She glanced at the desk, where Quilp was flashing a wad of money. "You're supposed to be dead."
"And you're not supposed to exist. Yet here we are."
Her eyes threw daggers at him, and she seemed to reach a decision. "No more screw-ups. Russian spies are planning to bomb a lecture next week. Szliard intends to be there, since the speaker is some hot-shot scientist. We've got to keep him away. The plan is to use Quilp to distract him." She glanced again at the desk, where Quilp and Szilard appeared to have concluded their business and were headed back to them. "Just follow my lead and don't screw it up this time." She fell back into her dim-witted vamp personna.
Leo and Quilp returned with a bellman in tow. Leo beamed at them. "Good news. They've given us an anteroom for the morning." He folded a yellow Western Union telegram and stuffed it in his coat pocket. "I think we can conclude our business post haste."
Quilp exuded smoke like a Liverpool steel mill. "I shore hope so. I got other deals to cut."
The bellman led them out of the lobby and down a broad corridor. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and ornately figured fabric covered the walls above gilded wainscoting. Haakon took the time to try to absorb what Corbett had just said. Maybe the tactical situation didn't change at all, so long as Szilard had the necessary inspiration.
The bellman unlocked doubled doors and turned on the lights in a room overlooking the hotel's gardens. A massive, dark mahogany conference table dominated the room, with high-backed stiff chairs arrayed about it. Before entering, Haakon glanced back down the hall, comforted to see Gunnar examining an extravagant painting not thirty feet away.
The bellman stood at attention and asked, "Will there be anything else, sir?"
Quilp rolled his eyes. "Everybody's got their hands out." He pulled a money clip from his coat and slipped an over-size note to the man's waiting hand. "Get out."
The bellman's face was impassive, but his voice was ice. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." He paused to bow to Corbett. "Ma'am."
Quilp blew more smoke and flicked ash from his cigar onto the carpet. "Let's git to it, then." He sat at the head of the table.
Leo pulled out a chair to Quilp's right and tipped an eyebrow at Corbett. "Charlotte, my dear?"
She tittered and squirmed into the chair while Quilp scowled at them.
Szilard scuttled to the opposite side and sat on Quilp's left, while Haakon sat at the opposite end of the table for a better view.
Szilard gave Quilp a sheepish look. "I'm afraid I must apologize. I may have wasted your time, Mr. Quilp."
"I toldja to call me Bob, dammit." He scowled. "Whadaya mean, wasted my time? Don't your refrigerator gizmo work? You scammin' me, boy?"
"Oh, no. I assure you our invention will work. But I just got this telegram from my co-inventor in Germany." He pulled out the Western Union envelope.
Quilp's eyes narrowed. He growled, "And?"
"It seems that Dr. Einstein—that's my co-inventor. Perhaps you've heard of him."
"Some Jew scientist."
Leo appeared nonplussed. "Yes, we're both Jewish." He paused to take a deep breath. "Anyway, Dr. Einstein seems to have sold the rights to our invention just yesterday, to a Swedish company. Elektrolux. I got the telegram just now when I went to the front desk to arrange for this room."
Corbett tensed, but the other two men, Szilard and Quilp, didn't notice.
Quilp glared at Haakon. "Hawk, did you have anything to do with this? Foulin' up my deal with Leo here? Maybe you're really Swedish, like your name sounds?"
"I assure you, sir, I knew nothing of any of this." What an asshole.
Quilp stared at him for a beat, then turned to Szilard. "Let me see that." He snatched the telegram from Leo's fingers. "Says here there's paperwork what still needs signed. You tryin to jack the price up on me? Won't work. I'm too smart for that."
Szilard shook his head. "No, no. Nothing like that. It's just that Albert, I mean Dr. Einstein, has verbally committed us. I can't go against him." He pushed his glass up his nose. "I'm so sorry, Mr. Quilp."
Quilp's face darkened and he seemed about to speak.
Szilard continued, "I mean, Bob. I'm sorry, Bob. I truly didn't even know Albert was talking to them."
Quilp stood, his face crimson and his jaws jumped. "Well, if that don't beat all. I ain't got no time to mess with this penny-ante deal anyhow. You can jest take your crappy invention and stuff it where the sun don't shine. Come on, Charlotte, let's get out of here."
"Bobby," she whined. "You promised. I want to spend the day with Leo." She stuck out her lower lip and pouted.
He scowled at her. "Do whatever ya want, woman. Jest don't forget who brung ya. Be back at our suite by five and ya better put on your best go-to-dinner clothes. I'm meetin' with somebody named Krupp from Germany, and I wanna look good in front of him." With a final glare and Szilard and Haakon, he stalked from the room.
Haakon leaned back. A day with Leo was exactly his plan, even if it included Charlotte Corbett.
She batted her eyes at him and a sly, fox-in-the-chicken-coop smile bent her lips. "Well, this will be interesting. Leo, what's the plan?"
Her mention of a plan made Haakon think of Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner. Whatever it was, this plan better work out better than the ones in the cartoons.