ZEV KOLAN
It was twelve forty-five when Masuto returned to Beverly Hill police headquarters. He sent out for a sandwich and coffee, and then in the records room he picked up the last three days’ Los Angeles Times. He chewed his ham and cheese without tasting it, while he read the death notice:
“Hilda Kramer, beloved wife of Wolf Bernie Kramer and Mother of Ellen Kramer Briggs. Rest in peace.”
Wainwright stopped by his desk. “What have you got, Masao?”
“A few pieces.”
“Do you know who killed Gaycheck?”
“I think so.”
“You wouldn’t want to share that knowledge?”
“I could be wrong.”
“You give me a pain in the ass — so help me God, you do, Masao.”
“Being inscrutable is part of the ploy. Look, Captain, I think I know who murdered Gaycheck. I have no evidence, absolutely nothing. I also have a notion about Haber.”
“Not the same party?”
“No, indeed. Hardly — but it’s in motion. Maybe I can wrap it up by tomorrow, maybe never.”
“That’s cheerful.”
“What I’m wondering,” Masuto said, “is whether the L.A.P.D. would run an errand for us.”
“Maybe. If we’re nice to them. There have been times when they wanted errands on our turf. What do you have in mind?”
“I want to know about the gun — the little twenty-two-caliber job that killed Gaycheck. I think it was purchased in one of the gun stores downtown during the past week, maybe during the past three days. L.A.P.D. would know who carries that kind of merchandise. Ballistics is pretty certain it was an automatic, not a revolver, a purse gun, probably a fancy little toy with mother-of-pearl on the grip. I’m sure they don’t sell many of those.”
“Why downtown, Masao? This county is lousy with gun stores.”
“Just a notion. Maybe they can track it down and get us a reading on who bought it.”
“I’ll give it a try.”
As Wainwright turned away, Masuto said, “One other thing, Captain.”
“Oh?”
“I want you to authorize two telephone calls.” Detective Sy Beckman, sitting at the next desk, was listening and trying to look like he was not listening. “For Sy here,” Masuto said, nodding at Beckman. “I want him to make the calls for me.”
“I’m waiting,” Wainwright said coldly. “Goddamn it, Masao …”
Masuto held up a hand and smiled.
“All right. Tell me.”
“One to Germany. One to England.”
“No.”
“It’s important.”
“Use the Telex.”
“It won’t do. I need the telephone.”
“No. That loudmouth will sit on the phone for an hour and I’ll get a bill for three hundred dollars, and the city manager will burn my ass off.”
“Don’t blame me,” said Beckman. “I don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“Make the calls yourself,” said the captain.
“I have other things to do. I want to clean this thing up and get out of it. I want to go home and sit in a hot bath for an hour and eat some civilized food and feed my roses.”
“My heart bleeds for you. If you think I’m going to give Beckman a license to sit on the phone to Germany and England and bankrupt this department, you’re crazy.”
“If I enjoyed the expression, which I do not,” Masuto said quietly, “I would say that my heart bleeds for you, Captain. You’re only the chief of detectives in the wealthiest city in the world, and you’re arguing about two telephone calls.”
“Go to hell,” said Wainwright, turning on his heel.
“The calls?”
“Make them, but so help me, Masao, I’d better know the reason why.” And then he stalked away.
Beckman was staring at Masuto and grinning. “You do have a way with you, Masao.” He readied his pencil and pad. “Who do I call?”
“First of all, there’s a publisher in England, Gibbons — put that down, G-i-b-b-o-n-s. They publish the definitive British stamp catalog. Or maybe Gibbons is the name of the catalog, and someone else publishes it. I don’t know, but you can call Holmbey’s, the stamp dealer in downtown L. A., and get that information. Get through to Gibbons and find someone there who knows his business, and find out all you can about a stamp called the One-Penny 1847 Orange Mauritius.”
“How do you spell Morashus?”
Masuto gave it to him. “But don’t flounder around, Sy. I want specific information. I want to know whether there was an original cover — got that original cover — floating around on the European continent in the late 1930s, and what happened to it. I suspect it disappeared. I want my suspicions confirmed.”
“Come on, Masao. It don’t make sense. How the hell would they know about one stamp in the 1930s?”
“They’d know, because this is maybe the most important stamp in the world.”
“Okay.” Beckman sighed. “I’ll give it a try. Now what about the second call?”
“Get through to police headquarters in Bonn, West Germany. Maybe you want to pull in Guttman for that, you know, the cop of the night shift. He speaks German, or maybe they have someone over there who talks English.”
“Guttman’s asleep.”
“Wake him up. No one worries about waking us up. Now I want to know this — whatever they have on Captain Gaylord Schwartzman of the SS. He was stationed at the concentration camp in Buchenwald, and after the war he disappeared. I want to know whether he ever had anything to do with a German publisher whose name was Wolf Bernie Kramer and who died in Buchenwald.”
“Slow up,” said Beckman, making notes on his yellow pad. “Spell ‘Buchenwald.’”
“And that reminds me of something else,” Masuto said. “When you talk to Gibbons, bring up the name of Kramer. He published the German edition of their catalog. Ask them specifically whether they can connect him in any way with the One-Penny Orange.”
“I’m as confused as hell,” said Beckman, “but I got it. What else?”
“I want to know two things — very important, if you can pin them down. I want to know how Kramer died in Buchenwald; and if it was by a firing squad, I want to know who commanded the firing squad. I also want to know whether they circulated Schwartzman’s photo and where and whether it appeared …” Masuto broke off suddenly, lost in thought.
“Masao?”
“Look, there’s a German magazine called Der Spiegel or something like that. It’s a big news magazine, like Time in America. There’s a good chance they have it on file down in the L.A. public library.”
“Come on, Masao, I don’t read German.”
“Do we have a morgue shot of Gaycheck?”
“Front face and profile both. You know that.”
“When you finish telephoning, take both shots downtown and spend the rest of the day with this magazine — if they got it. If they don’t have it, we’ll have to put the shots on the wire to Germany. But I think they have it.”
“How far back?”
“Five years.”
“Oh, Wainwright’s going to love that.”
“He’ll love it. Now, is everything clear?”
“Clear as mud.” He stared at Masuto. “Wait a minute. What am I looking for in this German magazine?”
“Gaycheck’s face — thirty years younger.”
“Sure. Nothing to it. You’re a doozy, Masao.”
“Well, we win some and we lose some. Keep in touch.”
“Where will you be?”
“At the Israeli consulate, as soon as I find out where it is.”
“And after that?”
“I’ll find you, Sy. Either here or at the public library.”
The office of the Israeli consul general was at 6380 Wilshire Boulevard, on that single avenue that is the pride of Los Angeles, and which citizens of the City of Angels compare to Fifth Avenue in New York, and perhaps not without modest reason. The consulate was on the seventeenth floor of an office building. Masuto showed his credentials to the receptionist, and a few minutes later he was shaking hands with Zev Kolan.
“I was reading about the case,” Kolan said. “According to your chief of police, you have no leads. Am I one of your suspects, Sergeant Masuto?”
“Then what of our encounter at the funeral home?” Masuto asked, smiling.
“It would have been a useful defense — something to point suspicion elsewhere.”
“There was a Zev Kolan who was a colonel of the Haganah in Israel’s War of Liberation. Was that you?”
“I see you do your homework.”
“Oh, no — no indeed. I’ve had no time for homework. But a few weeks ago I was reading David Ben-Gurion’s memoirs. Only on my way over here I remembered your name.”
“Ah. I wonder sometimes why the Japanese have so intense an interest in Israel. Will you have a cigar?” he asked, opening a box on his desk. “These are H. Upmanns — not from Cuba; I do not believe in breaking the laws of a country where you are a guest — but from Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. They are superb. I do believe there is no better cigar in the world. They are my only extravagance. Otherwise, I live a rather spartan existence.”
“Thank you, but I don’t smoke. Do you really feel that the Japanese have an extraordinary interest in Israel?”
“Yes — oh yes. There are strange similarities between our two peoples. It would be a pleasure to talk about it sometime. But not now. You did not come here to discuss ethnic empathies.”
“I’m afraid not. Why do you no longer call youself colonel?”
“I have neither love nor admiration for the military life. Once, it was a necessity. Now I am too old.”
“Ah so. Of course. May I ask a rather impolite question?”
Kolan clipped the end of a cigar and lit it. “Of course. You are a policeman. You must.”
“Very well. Given the opportunity, would you have killed Gaylord Schwartzman?”
Kolan leaned back and regarded his cigar smoke thoughtfully. “The same question I ask myself. No, Sergeant, I don’t think I would. Tell me, are you a Buddhist?”
“Yes. I practice Zen.”
“Then, like myself, you are no stranger to death. Death is not terrible. It is the taking of life that is unspeakable and unforgivable. I would want to see Gaylord Schwartzman tried before a court in Jerusalem. I would want to see his guilt made public. His sentence is a matter of indifference to me. But I am sure you did not come here to ask me whether I killed Gaycheck any more than to discuss Israelis and Japanese.”
“No. I came to talk about Buchenwald — if it doesn’t distress you too much?”
“Whatever I can tell you. I have not treasured the memories, so they are somewhat vague.”
“How long were you there?”
“About two years.”
“I am interested in a German publisher who was sent to Buchenwald and who died there. His name was Wolf Bernie Kramer. Do you by any chance remember him?”
Kolan thought about it for a while, then shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Were many men executed in the manner you described — by a firing squad?”
“They preferred the gas chamber. The firing squad was special, a visible thing. To show — to make an example.”
“Was Schwartzman always in command of the firing squad — during the time you were there?”
“I’m not sure. I have not been of much help, have I?”
The telephone rang. Kolan answered it. “For you,” he said to Masuto, handing him the phone. “You can take it in the next room if you wish privacy.”
“It’s all right.” Masuto took the phone. It was Beckman.
“Did it occur to you, Masao,” he said, “that it is now nine o’clock in England?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Well, I lucked out. They have an answering service that was impressed with the fact that a Beverly Hills cop was calling London, and they put me through to one of the directors. He gave me the number of an old gentleman who has been with the firm for forty years — get that? Forty years. Feller by the name of Brisham, only you don’t spell it that way. Anyway, I hit the jackpot. Are you listening?”
“I’m here,” Masuto said.
“Well, stop being so goddamn silent. It seems there was a guy back in the thirties, name of Lord Skeffington, and it seems that lots of these British lords, they don’t have the money for a pair of shoes. So this Skeffington inherits a stamp collection from his father, and what do you think is a part of it? Guess.”
“The One-Penny Orange.”
“Jackpot. The original cover. So he turns it over to Gibbons, they should be the agents and sell it for him, and they let the word out that they got it and it’s up for grabs. It turns out they got a very good connection on the Continent, this same Wolf Kramer who publishes their catalog in German.” Beckman paused to let it sink in.
“Go on,” Masuto said.
“So Kramer comes up with a buyer, and the price is eight thousand pounds, and the pound was five dollars then, so that makes it forty thousand smackeroos, which ain’t hay even back in those days.”
“Who was the buyer?”
“That, my boy, is something they never found out. Kramer acted as the agent. But this old Brisham character, he tells me that it’s his suspicion that Kramer himself was the buyer.”
“What happened to the cover? Does he know?”
“Nobody knows. According to Brisham, it disappeared from the face of the earth. He claims that it could not have been sold or offered at auction anywhere without Gibbons knowing about it.”
“Good. Sy, that’s good — very good. Now get on the horn to Germany.”
“Wait a moment — Masao, for Christ’s sake, it’s after ten P.M. in Germany.”
“Police stations don’t close.”
“I didn’t make one call. I made three calls. One to the answering service, one to the director, and one to Brisham. I asked for charges — one hundred and seventy-five bucks. Do you know what it’s going to cost when I start tracking around Germany? Anyway …”
“Do it! Do you have Guttman there to translate?”
“He’s on his way, sore as hell.”
“Well, fill him in and get on with it.”
He put down the phone and turned to Kolan, who was regarding him with interest.
“Forgive me for taking up so much of your time,” Masuto said.
“I am fascinated.”
“A few minutes more?”
“As long as you wish.”
“I am told that Israeli Intelligence is just about the best in the world.”
“Is it? Possibly, yet not good enough to tell us that the Yom Kippur War was coming. Perhaps it is estimable by comparison, since there is so little intelligence among any of the intelligence services. Intelligent human beings do not become spies, and it has become a rather loathsome profession. Perhaps we have more who are motivated by patriotism than other countries, perhaps because there is little else we can offer.”
“And yet you were unable to find Schwartzman.”
“That, Sergeant Masuto, is not the work of Israeli Intelligence. Do you know how many Schwartzmans there are still at large, still hidden among decent people? Hundreds.” He watched Masuto thoughtfully through the smoke of his cigar, and Masuto, studying the hawklike face, the pale blue eyes, wondered how much he could ever know about such a man, regardless of how open and ingenuous his comments might be.
“You are trying to find out about Schwartzman in Germany,” Kolan observed.
“Oh?”
“I could not help overhearing your conversation on the telephone.”
“And you don’t think I will discover anything worthwhile.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Your manner.”
“I am not prejudiced against the German police. They are handicapped because they want so desperately to forget.”
“That isn’t your handicap, Mr. Kolan.”
“True. We want to remember. It is very important that we remember.”
“I can understand that. I have only one more question, and then I will take up no more of your time.”
“I assure you, my time is at your disposal.”
“Do you collect stamps?”
“What an odd question! But of course — Schwartzman was a stamp dealer. A peculiar profession for a pathological madman to finish with. As a matter of fact, I do collect stamps — but only Israeli stamps.”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all. It has been a pleasure to know you, Sergeant Masuto. By the way, if my opinion is worth anything, I would guess that you will not find out who murdered Ivan Gaycheck.”
Masuto smiled. “Oh, I will certainly discover who killed him. But whether I can arrest the killer — well, who knows?” At the door to Kolan’s office, he paused and said to the consul general, “You must not consider me slipshod in my methods because I did not ask you where you were between twelve and one o’clock yesterday.”
“I would not think of you as being slipshod in your methods. Not at all. Do you want to know where I was between twelve and one o’clock yesterday?”
“I think not,” said Masuto.