16

Late August 1939

New York City

THIS TIME HE got to see New York. One part of it anyway, since Nessheim’s activities were confined to Yorkville on the Upper East Side, where Schultz lived and the Bund had its national headquarters.

The cadre of Ordnungsdienst had left Camp Schneider after two days. They had continued their manoeuvres in the high field, despite persisting rain, and taken their meals among themselves at the temporary trencher tables in the dining room. Nessheim had avoided them, though he saw them look him over with curiosity and no small contempt – he felt like a conscientious objector in a war, forced to spend time amidst soldiers.

After their aborted encounter in her cabin Frances avoided him. Thank God Schultz and the O.D. had discovered them there before things had gone much further. They had been caught very embarrassingly (Frances had on even fewer clothes at that point than he), but he hadn’t had any choice.

The morning after he had managed to sneak back into the cabin while Frances was giving tennis lessons, and retrieve the reel of tape, then make his way through the thick woods to the rendezvous point on the forestry fire road. Fedora was waiting in his Dodge. The agent had been there all night, Nessheim realised.

He held up the tape, saying, ‘There’s not a lot on here.’

‘What do you mean?’ Fedora demanded. His eyes were nasty slits.

Nessheim explained what had happened.

‘Jesus,’ Fedora exclaimed, ‘we spent a lot of time setting this up, pal.’

‘You think I did it on purpose?’ Fedora hadn’t been chased by the O.D. and a German Shepherd. Nessheim felt bad enough about screwing up without the dressing down.

He handed over the tape. Without another word, Fedora started the car and drove off.

Guttman hadn’t tried to disguise his disappointment when Nessheim spoke to him three days later. ‘It’s not enough,’ he said of the contents of the tape.

‘Does it give any idea what they’re going to do?’

‘It sounds like they’re planning to take over a building on Labor Day. We don’t know which one, just that it’s in New York.’

‘Can’t we just watch Schultz, then grab him when he makes his move?’

‘No,’ Guttman said testily. ‘What good is nabbing Schultz if his thugs go take over the Empire State Building? Or blow up the British Embassy? We need more information. You’ve got to try and find out whatever you can before this goddamned camp ends.’ He didn’t sound sanguine.

But then they got a break. A week before the end of camp, Schultz called him aside after lunch. ‘A word, Bitte.’

They went into Schultz’s office, where the German signalled Nessheim to close the door, then pointed to a chair. Schultz himself remained standing, looking thoughtful. ‘Tell me, when camp ends have you any plans?’

‘I thought I’d head back to Chicago unless something turned up out here.’

‘You are expected there? Family?’

‘Not really. My aunt knows I’ll stay if I can find something else to do. When the weather changes there’s not going to be much need for a swimming teacher in Chicago.’ He managed a wan smile.

‘I might have some work for you in New York City. You remember the Bund rally in February?’

Nessheim nodded; it had been all over the national press. There had been fights in the hall, bad ones, as Leftists had tried to storm the stage. The police hadn’t intervened, leaving it to the Bund’s own security to keep peace inside Madison Square Garden. The result hadn’t cast the Bund in a good light, since their own security force had been more eager to beat up the dissidents than expel them.

‘We’re holding another one.’

‘Really?’ In the light of the new Soviet-Moscow pact, this was a surprise.

Schultz said, ‘We need to show our strength more than ever. I think record numbers will attend.’

‘Where will it be held?’

‘In Madison Square Garden again. I wonder if you would be interested in helping out the week before.’

‘As a volunteer?’

‘Of course not. Same wages as here. You would need to pay for your lodging at the hostel, but we would pay for your meals.’

‘I’d like that very much.’

The hostel, he discovered, was a prim tall building on East 85th, designed for young German males visiting America. He ate supper there dutifully on his first night, sitting by himself as he consumed a solid, flavourless meal of Spätzle and minced pork. Looking around him, he thought he recognised some of the young men eating at a long table in the rear. The O.D. Some would have been his pursuers at Camp Schneider.

Upstairs his room was a sullen single cell with a cross on the wall above his bed. Tacked on the inside of the door to his small room was a list of regulations – no women visitors, no liquor, no smoking, no radios.

To hell with this, he decided, and went down to the lobby, where he changed a quarter with the desk clerk for nickels and went into the phone booth, drawing the accordion door behind him. Consulting the phone book he found P. Rourke listed on West 37th. He hesitated for a moment – Schultz had been insistent that he not go out at night. ‘Early bedtime. No roistering, ja?’ he’d said, with a wink that had become a habit since discovering Nessheim with his pants down in Frances Stockton’s cabin.

After four rings the throaty voice of Peggy Rourke said hello.

‘It’s Rossbach. Remember me?’

‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘You in town?’

‘Yep.’

‘Then I remember. Where are you?’

He told her. ‘But I can’t exactly wait outside the front door. It’s kind of strict.’

‘You in a monastery or something?’

‘I’ll tell you when I see you.’

Twenty minutes later, Nessheim stood on the corner of 2nd Avenue and 86th Street – the German-American Broadway – as Peggy roared up in a jalopy the colour of spring grass. Twenty minutes later, she parked off 125th Street, then led him around the corner where a shimmering marquee had in enormous letters the word Apollo. People were milling excitedly in front.

Peggy led him through the crowd. ‘Hey, Jackson,’ she said, handing a folded sawbuck to the uniformed man at the door. He smiled and palmed the bill, then let the rope down to let them through. They went upstairs to the very top of the theatre, and found two empty seats in the gods. It was between shows, and the overhead lights lit up the vast theatre like a movie set. The audience was almost entirely Negro, and dressed to kill – the men in zoot suits, swaggering and drinking openly from hip flasks, and the ladies wearing brightly coloured dresses.

Then the house lights dimmed, the orchestra in the pit began to play, and a handsome black woman in a dress of electric blue came out on stage. Her face was the colour of caramel, handsome rather than pretty, and she had a garland of white flowers in her hair. Gradually, the audience quieted down, until there was absolute silence in the theatre. Then she began to sing. For the next hour Nessheim could not have told you where he was, who he was with, or even who he was. The voice he heard was mesmerising.

As the house lights went on, the trance was broken. Peggy squeezed his arm and he came back to earth. ‘You like that, Rossbach?’ she asked.

‘She’s incredible.’

‘They call her Lady Day. Let’s go now – nothing’s going to beat that.’

As they made their way out to the lobby, Nessheim suddenly stopped. ‘I know that guy,’ he said, pointing to a Negro man in a wide-striped suit with padded shoulders. He was talking to two women, each wearing bright red lipstick, a taffeta gown and high heels. Where had he seen him before?

He was about to go over and ask when Peggy took his arm. ‘Maybe you do, honey, but this ain’t the time to find out. We’re guests here, Jimmy. This is their place. If he wanted to know you tonight, he would have come and said so.’

They went back to the car. She drove through Central Park, spooky with shadows this late – it was after midnight. She lit a cigarette with one hand, scratching a match like a bookie against her thumbnail, then rammed the window down and exhaled gaily into the still summer air. ‘I hope I’m not taking you back to your monk’s cell, kiddo.’

She lived above a hardware store, between 7th and 8th Avenues, in a three-room railroad apartment. The bedroom overlooked the street, and was lit up by a neon sign flashing Liquors on the corner of the block. Peggy fried eggs and bacon on a tiny gas stove, and they ate hungrily on tin plates, squashed together at a table the size of a waiter’s platter. As they finished she suppressed a heavy yawn. ‘I’ve got an early start if you’re worried about getting back in the morning.’ She wiped up the remains of yolk on her plate with a heel of bread and grinned. ‘Not that we’re going to get much sleep.’

She dropped him at six the next morning, a block from the hostel. ‘It’s been great,’ she said, patting his knee, but her attention seemed elsewhere.

‘How are you fixed tomorrow?’

‘Busy tomorrow,’ she said. ‘All week’s bad, to tell you the truth.’

‘But—’

‘Jimmy, listen.’ She was looking at him now, and her expression was level-headed as a teacher’s. ‘You’re a sweet guy – I’ve already told you that. But I’m thirty-nine years old, three husbands down, and happy enough on my own. You deserve more than that. You need someone in your life, but that someone’s not me. Next time you’re in town, give me a call, and we’ll do the town again. But you ought to get yourself a steady girl. Okay?’

Peggy leaned across and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Now beat it,’ she said lightly, ‘or I’ll be late for the breakfast shift.’

Nessheim got out of the jalopy, and watched as she did a big U-turn on the street. Pushing down the window she blew him a kiss. ‘Be good, Jimmy. And be safe.’

* * *

He went to Schultz’s house later that morning. Mrs Schultz opened the door with a frown set like rictus on her face. After being found in Frances’s cabin, Nessheim was in disgrace.

She led him through to a spic-and-span kitchen. Through its window he saw a little square of garden, bordered by the high wall of an apartment building behind. The Schultzes’ daughter Katrina was playing by an apple tree with a friend – it was Adele Kugel, wasn’t it? Both girls looked up, saw him, then promptly looked away. Well, he thought, we’re no longer in Vermont. Maybe that’s their problem.

Schultz came in carrying a large mug of coffee. ‘Young Rossbach, you’ve made it.’

‘Ja,’ he found himself saying.

‘The accommodation I know is very simple. But healthy, clean,’ he added a little insistently.

‘It’s fine.’

‘Then where were you last night?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘The hostel reported that your bed was not slept in.’ ‘They’re spying on me?’

‘I asked,’ said Schultz firmly. ‘So where were you?’

He wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but he couldn’t afford to have a fight with Schultz now. He said with a sigh, ‘I was with a friend.’

‘I told you not to be in touch with people.’

‘I know, I’m sorry. It’s a woman I met at the place in the Catskills.’

‘I suppose she’s a Yid then?’

‘Of course not.’ He did his best to look indignant. ‘Her name’s Rourke. She’s a waitress.’ Schultz looked sceptical so he added, ‘You can look it up in the phone book. West 37th Street. That’s where I spent the night.’

Schultz still wasn’t happy. ‘If I were you, young Rossbach, I’d learn to keep your Pimmel in your pants. One of these days it’s going to get you in a lot of trouble. From now on I want no wanderings, is that clear?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Now let me explain what I need you to do.’

The duties were simple, and simple-minded. Ahead of the rally scheduled for Labor Day, Schultz wanted Nessheim to distribute leaflets publicising the event throughout the immediate neighbourhood. House by house, street by street, in all of Yorkville, which as Nessheim discovered, stretched from the East River to 3rd Avenue, and from 79th up to 96th. It hardly seemed necessary, since posters promoting the rally were plastered on every streetlamp and every free wall space throughout the area.

Was it for this that Schultz had brought Nessheim down from Vermont? It didn’t make sense; a ten-year-old boy looking for pocket money could have done the job. It seemed odder still when he soon learned that his work was being checked up on – a stout old German woman, whose apartment he’d knocked on one afternoon, saw him an hour later on 2nd Avenue. ‘Herr Schultz came round to ask if I had had my leaflet,’ she said. ‘I told him you had been already.’

He felt sidelined and with five days left before Labor Day, he was getting nowhere fast. Each time he called D.C. – now every day – he could hear the strain in Guttman’s voice.

He had to do something. For a lack of alternatives he decided to follow Schultz. To cover the time he would miss from his ‘job’, he worked late one evening passing out leaflets – he had just about done the entirety of Yorkville.

The next day, he watched Schultz’s house from a stool in a German bakery on the corner that served coffee. He felt obliged to buy a Kuchen every hour, and he had eaten five when Schultz at last came out of the house, accompanied by Beringer. Nessheim gave them a block’s head start, and prayed they wouldn’t hail a cab. When he caught sight of them two blocks east, he saw that they had been joined by a pack of Ordnungsdienst a dozen strong. The paramilitaries now wore shorts, T-shirts, and light boots, a uniform which seemed out of place on the streets of New York.

He followed the group for half an hour, as they walked en masse out of Yorkville, over to the sombre monumental apartment blocks of Park Avenue. There they headed south on the west side of the split avenue, drawing looks from passers-by. Then at 72nd Street on a signal from Schultz they dispersed. Schultz and Beringer were walking alone again, though from his vantage point two blocks behind, looking along Park Avenue as it tilted down towards Grand Central in the distance, Nessheim could see that all the Ordnungsdienst were within 200 yards of the pair.

After a few further blocks, Schultz and Beringer stopped at a corner. Behind them, set back from the street, was a massive Victorian mansion of decorated red brick, with a crenellated tower in its centre. Nessheim wondered if it had been the fanciful creation of a nineteenth-century millionaire; it wasn’t clear what it was now.

Schultz was looking around with an air of blameless curiosity – he could have been a Kansas farmer on his first trip to New York. Then he turned suddenly and with Beringer began to walk north again, retracing his steps. It seemed strange, and stranger still when at 72nd Street the O.D. regrouped around him.

At 85th they turned east, moving back towards Schultz’s house along a thin side street of brownstones. Near Lexington, they passed of all things a synagogue, where two teenage boys were coming down the steps of the building. The O.D., stationed in front of Schultz and Beringer in advance formation, had already passed by, but Heydeman stayed close to Schultz on the street side, like a bodyguard. Nessheim saw that he was wearing a Bund armband around one bicep, with a red-and-white blazon that resembled a swastika.

One of the boys, the smaller, imp-like in a little jacket and tie, pointed at Heydeman’s arm and said something. His friend next to him laughed. Suddenly Heydeman strode over to the pair of them. The imp fled, laughing, racing up 85th Street towards Nessheim. His friend remained. He was a tall gangly kid with an innocent look on his face.

Heydeman shook his fist at the retreating boy, then turned to the other. Nessheim could see Heydeman square his shoulders and pull his arm back slowly, almost lumbering. It swung powerfully through the air and his fist landed flush on the gawky teenager’s nose.

There was a sudden howl and the boy put both hands to his nose, lowering his face in obvious agony. The imp had stopped running and turned, looking back in horror. The O.D. men had stopped as well, and began to retrace their steps just as the doors of the synagogue swung open and a group of half a dozen grown men came out, all in suits and wearing yarmulkes.

They took one look and rushed Heydeman, swinging. The big man punched one of them, and had lifted another off the ground with both hands when the others overwhelmed him, knocking Heydeman to the ground. But by then the O.D. were back, and they set upon the group of Jews with tactical precision. One of them even came over to push the wounded boy against a wall, where he began to hit him with a rhythmic series of punches – his face, then his body, then his face again.

Nessheim was sprinting forward now, and grabbed the boy’s assailant by his shoulder. He was a heavy-set blond guy with a crew-cut, older than the others, and he turned with a look of cold rage on his face. For a moment Nessheim thought the man was going to square off with him.

‘I’m on your side,’ he shouted. ‘Forget the kid, and go watch Schultz.’ He pointed wildly towards the melee continuing on the synagogue steps. The O.D. man nodded, and ran back to defend his patron.

The Jewish boy was leaning against the wall, moaning as he held his nose with one ineffectual hand – for blood ran down his shirt in a non-stop stream. His otherhand was massaging his lower back, where his kidneys had been subjected to a series of hammer blows.

Nessheim leaned forward, and the boy flinched. ‘Get out of here, kid,’ said Nessheim. ‘I mean it. Run.’ At first the boy only heard the harsh timbre of his voice and not the meaning of his words. He cringed as if Nessheim were about to hit him, too. ‘Go on, get going,’ Nessheim said urgently, and at last the boy reacted. He stumbled, then ran to join his littler friend, and Nessheim took a half-hearted kick at his backside, and missed.

When he went over to the synagogue’s steps he found the Jews had retreated inside. The Bund members stood bunched on the steps, blood up. As he approached Schultz looked at Nessheim with surprise, but Heydeman glared at him. ‘Why did you let the fucker go?’

‘I wanted to make sure they were all right,’ Nessheim said, pointing at Schultz and Beringer.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Heydeman angrily, but Schultz put a restraining hand on the big man’s arm. ‘Calm yourself,’ he ordered. He gave a short cynical laugh. ‘You should know by know that young Rossbach is a lover, not a fighter.’

‘Should we go in?’ one of the O.D. called to Schultz, pointing to the entrance to the synagogue. He looked eager, and Schultz hesitated. But just then a siren wailed from the direction of Park Avenue, then another. They were coming their way.

‘No. Now go! Schnell!’

And they all ran, Nessheim using the excuse to peel off, turning up Lexington instead of heading east to Yorkville. Right then he would have happily lived up to Schultz’s description of him as a lover not a fighter, but Peggy Rourke had made it clear he shouldn’t phone again.

He had arranged to go by Schultz’s house the next morning, and Nessheim knew he had to stick to the appointment. He reached Guttman at the Bureau, and described the events of the day before. To his surprise, Guttman was less interested in the fight than in the precise details of where Schultz had gone. ‘You say they walked down Park Avenue?’

‘That’s right. Then the squad all peeled off – though they stayed within range, if you know what I mean.’

‘Sounds strange. Where was that exactly?’

‘I told you. On Park Avenue.’

‘Where on Park? It’s probably five miles long, kid.’

‘God, I don’t remember. Somewhere just below 72nd Street.’

Guttman was silent for a moment. ‘I want you to retrace their steps. Maybe you can figure out what they were doing. It sounds like more than just taking a walk.’

‘Okay,’ said Nessheim, then looked at his watch. ‘I’ll do it this afternoon. I have to see Schultz first.’

Schultz himself answered the door, and to Nessheim’s relief was friendly. ‘Come in, come in. There is coffee in the kitchen, and I have a surprise.’

Nessheim followed him through and found Beringer ensconced at the table in the kitchen corner, eating strudel with a fork.

‘No leaflets today,’ said Schultz, pouring coffee into a mug and handing it to Nessheim.

‘What would you like me to do instead?’

‘Nothing.’ Schultz gave a gnomic smile. ‘I thought you deserved a break.’

‘Really?’ Maybe he would try Peggy on the phone after all. Maybe she’d change her mind. If not, he could go see the Empire State Building.

‘Ja. We’ll all go to Long Island.’ There was nothing tentative in his voice. ‘You like to fish?’

‘Sure,’ said Nessheim reflexively. Not that he had fished for years. As a kid his father would take him out to trawl for small-mouth bass on a lake east of Bremen. But not very often.

‘Good, I hoped you did. We often go out, right to the tip of the island. It’s beautiful, believe me. We catch fish,’ he said insistently. ‘And then we eat them.’

‘What time are we leaving?’ asked Nessheim, thinking he had better do what Guttman said first.

‘Right now,’ said Schultz firmly.

Four of them went on the outing – Nessheim, Schultz, Beringer, and Peter Heydeman. No women, for Schultz portrayed it as a boys’ day out. ‘We will have a good time, and bring the fish home for Mrs Schultz to cook. She can do wonderful things with pollack.’

They caught a noon train from Penn Station. The day was scorching, as if the summer’s accumulated heat was making a last stand before fall began. Their railway car was almost empty, picking up only a few early shoppers heading home. Nessheim wanted to look out the window and gather his thoughts – should he start to press Schultz about his plans, or should he continue to play the idiot athlete? – but Beringer unpacked a picnic box with breakfast. A thermos of sweet iced coffee, pastries filled with chocolate, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and soft rolls stuffed with Mettwurst. There was enough food to feed a dozen, but Heydeman demolished what the others could not eat.

It took three hours to reach Montauk. When they disembarked there Nessheim was feeling sweaty and slightly nauseated. The walk from the station to a small harbour on the south side of the island only partly revived him. In the distance the dunes were the pale colour of eggless ice cream, and after days of overcast weather, the sun had taken over the unclouded sky like an avenging god. They passed an inland waterway which held ducks and a dozen pair of honking geese, and Schultz explained that a hurricane the year before had cut off the very tip of Long Island.

They came to a small bay, more a cove really, with a marina in the centre of its crescent curve. Only a few boats were tied up to its dock: a solitary sailing yacht, a few rowboats with outboards, and a tar-stained fishing trawler that shimmered in the windless heat. ‘There she is,’ said Beringer, pointing at the trawler. As they approached it along the quay Nessheim saw it was named The Braunau.

There was no one on the boat. Following Schultz and Beringer on board, Nessheim stood by the pilot house and watched uneasily as Heydeman untied first the stern rope, then the aft, and jumped back on board. Schultz turned the key at the captain’s wheel and the diesel engine rumbled into life. Beringer sat in a deck chair, reading an old copy of Look magazine.

At the stern two fishing rigs were set up, the poles reaching high into the air, with a pair of padded chairs set back from the rail. They sailed south and east, into what must have been familiar water, since Schultz did not consult a chart. Nessheim felt queasy again as soon as they moved out of harbour into the irregular chop of the Atlantic, and within an hour he felt deeply seasick, made worse by the scorching glare of the sun and the stench of diesel. They were far enough out now that there was no land in view. Dropping anchor so that Heydeman and Schultz could fish only made things worse, as The Braunau tilted and rocked up and down, passive in the ocean swell.

Soon he could take it no longer, and went out of sight to the fore of the boat, where he was violently sick. He stayed there, arms draped over the gunwales, retching for half an hour, until there was nothing left to retch. He felt he’d turned his stomach inside out.

Reappearing at the stern he found that Schultz had caught two good-sized pollack, and that Beringer had laid a small table he’d erected next to the pilot house. The German was taking food from a second wicker picnic box and putting it on plates: more Mettwurst, lettuce leaves, cherry tomatoes, a half-pound of butter and a loaf of rye bread. Nessheim found the sight of the food nauseating. When Beringer offered him a bottle of Pilsner he shook his head.

Beringer chuckled. ‘No sea legs, Jimmy?’

Heydeman and Schultz now joined them. While they ate, Nessheim went and sat in one of the padded chairs, looking out at the horizon and taking deep breaths. The sun was setting and gradually light drained out of the sky, but the air stayed moist and sticky, the temperature at least 80 degrees. A faint moon appeared, and stars began to dot the sky like a series of distant lamps switched on one by one. Nessheim couldn’t see the lights of any other boats, and there was nothing dark in the distance that suggested land. They were a long way from Montauk, he concluded, and resigned himself to several more hours of nausea.

After supper Schultz and Heydeman wanted to fish some more, so he vacated the padded chair and went towards the bow. The wind had died completely, and Beringer at the helm had them barely idling. The result was a slow swaying progress through the waves, which were picking up. He managed not to be sick again, and growing drowsy he curled up on the deck, using his shirt for a pillow, since the night air was muggy and warm. Eventually he fell asleep.

When he awoke it was still dark, but he sensed he had slept for hours. For a moment he wondered where he was, then a wave shook the starboard side of the boat below him and he remembered. He got up and made his way back to the pilot house, carrying his shirt.

Beringer was standing at the wheel, smoking a cigarette. He stood in the yellow glow of a small light bulb hooked in the tiny cabin’s ceiling. ‘Better?’ he said without much concern.

‘Yeah.’ He went out to stand by the padded chairs, where he had to steady himself by grabbing the stern rail. They were moving at a few knots now.

In the far chair Heydeman had gone to sleep with his mouth open, his big buck teeth exposed, and his arms hanging down on each side of the chair. But next to him Schultz was wide awake, watching his line intently.

Schultz said, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something, young Rossbach. How did you happen to be there the other night when we had the trouble at the synagogue?’

Caught off guard, Nessheim hesitated. At last he said, ‘I saw you and thought you needed help.’

‘Yes, but you were a bit far afield, weren’t you? If I remember you came down from Park Avenue. That’s not Yorkville.’

‘I had some extra leaflets so I gave them to the doormen in the swanky buildings. I thought it couldn’t do any harm. Was that wrong?’

‘Not at all,’ said Schultz.

‘If it’s true,’ Beringer interjected smoothly, who had silently appeared in the dark. The boat was idling again.

Nessheim looked at Beringer. ‘Why would I lie?’ He was trying not to sound nervous.

Beringer said, ‘You would if you’d been following us. I thought I saw you earlier down at 72nd Street.’

‘I told you, I went over to Park and handed out leaflets to some of the doormen. Maybe you saw me then. What were you doing down there anyway?’

‘That’s not your business,’ Beringer began, but Schultz raised his hand to cut him off. ‘I’ll tell you. We were looking at the Armory. Scouting the lay of the land, as they say.’

Beringer looked surprised by Schultz’s indiscretion, but Schultz’s tone suggested it didn’t matter in the least. Nessheim noticed that Heydeman’s eyes were open now.

‘Why the Armory?’ he asked. If Schultz didn’t mind telling him they’d cased the place, maybe that meant he trusted Nessheim after all. Though it seemed a big maybe.

‘He asks, “Why the Armory?”’ said Schultz, turning his head towards Beringer and chuckling.

‘What’s so funny?’ asked Nessheim.

‘What do you think they keep in an armoury, young Rossbach? Cat food? Bottles of beer?’

Heydeman was now fully awake. ‘Wait until Monday,’ he said.

‘That’s the day of the rally,’ Nessheim said.

‘What about it?’ said Schultz. ‘We’ll leave that nonsense to Kuhn. There will be 15,000 people there and just as many Jews protesting. That’s when we’ll take the Armory.’

‘You’ve already got weapons.’ He remembered the rifle practice at Camp Schneider.

‘Single-shot garbage,’ said Schultz scornfully. ‘The Armory has powerful repeating rifles and machine guns.’ Nessheim could hear the relish in his voice.

Suddenly Schultz tensed and leaned forward, staring at his line. It had gone taut, and when he lifted his reel the rod bent sharply.

‘Have you got one?’ asked Beringer.

Schultz was reeling in now, and the rod flexed like a bow. Then he stopped reeling. ‘Nature calls,’ he announced, putting one hand meaningfully to his flies. ‘Take over,’ he added abruptly, motioning Nessheim to grab the rod as he got up, then headed towards the fore of the boat. Nessheim took his place in the chair, then began reeling the line in slowly.

He sensed Beringer standing behind him, and after a minute Schultz returned and stood there too. He struck a match and Nessheim smelled cigar smoke. Just what I need, he thought, still feeling slightly nauseated. He was reeling in more quickly now, for there didn’t seem much drag on the line. It couldn’t be a very large fish.

Heydeman had left his chair and come to stand by the stern rail. ‘Let me feel,’ he said and lifted the rod out of Nessheim’s hands. Then Nessheim felt his chair being pushed from behind, spinning him round in the swivel seat to face Schultz. The German was holding a cigar to his lips with one hand; the other held a small snub-nosed revolver which he was pointing at Nessheim. It looked a low calibre of pistol, thought Nessheim mechanically, but it would do the trick.

Schultz took the cigar out of his mouth. ‘As you Americans would say, let’s talk turkey.’

‘What about?’ Nessheim had a sinking feeling in his stomach.

‘You tell me, Herr Nessheim.’

‘What do you mean?’ he said, but it sounded feeble.

‘You collected a letter in Woodstock in that name. It was from your mother in Wisconsin, but you claimed your parents were dead and you came from Chicago. So we started to make inquiries.’

Nessheim coughed, then said croakily, ‘Rossbach’s my mother’s maiden name. I had a bust-up with my dad.’

‘Aw,’ mocked Schultz. ‘A Streit with your father. How sad. Did you tell the FBI that when you joined?’ He suddenly spat overboard, sending a plug of gleaming saliva out into the water.

Nessheim told himself not to panic. ‘The only thing I’ve ever joined was the Bund.’

‘That was interesting too. The Chicago branch said you were an extremely inactive member. Too busy with your lawman duties, eh?’

‘I really don’t know what you’re talking about. And that gun is making me nervous.’ Which was true.

Schultz said, ‘I want to know who you work for in the FBI and how you came to Camp Schneider. What did you want to find out there?’

Nessheim shook his head vigorously. ‘You have this all wrong, Herr Schultz. Nobody sent me to Camp Schneider; I needed the job. And I’ve explained to you about my name.’

Schultz ignored this. ‘Peter,’ he ordered. ‘Take hold of him.’

Suddenly from behind Heydeman gripped both of Nessheim’s arms. The man’s strength was incredible; Nessheim felt as if large manacles had been put around his biceps – he didn’t even try to flex them.

He wondered what they were planning to do. If Schultz was simply going to shoot him, he’d have done that already. Perhaps they were just trying to scare him; he had heard that prisoners of war were often threatened before interrogation to make them feel more vulnerable.

But Schultz had something else in mind. Like a nurse passing a scalpel, he handed his cigar to Beringer. Beringer stepped nearer to Nessheim, holding the glowing cigar so close that Nessheim could feel its heat on his chest. When he squirmed, Heydeman tightened his hold, squeezing Nessheim’s arms like gelatine.

Schultz said, ‘The rules are simple. Tell the truth and you won’t be hurt.’

The boat was rocking slightly; the still surface of the Atlantic had given way to a small but discernible chop. It didn’t seem to affect Heydeman’s hold on his arms in the slightest, but it reinforced Nessheim’s nausea, which was mixed with feelings of panic he tried to subdue.

‘Who are you working for at the Bureau of Investigation?’ asked Schultz.

Nessheim hesitated, wondering how much to admit.

Schultz said sharply, ‘We are 20 miles from Montauk, and twice as far from the New Jersey shore, so no one is going to hear your screams. But if you tell the truth you won’t need to. Now where are you based?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

Beringer suddenly leaned forward and pressed the cigar against his right bicep. Nessheim flinched as he felt intense heat, then agonising pain. Beringer kept the cigar firmly against his upper arm until an acrid smell of flesh filled the air. Nessheim bit his lower lip to keep from crying out.

He could see Schultz’s face in the reflected glow of the pilot-house light. He looked dissatisfied. ‘Let’s get his pants off,’ Schultz commanded. ‘Peter, hold him tight.’

Beringer came forward and grabbed onto the waistband of Nessheim’s trousers. When Nessheim started to kick out, Schultz took a step forward and poked the pistol in his face. Beringer undid his belt and pulled down the khaki trousers until they sat like bags around Nessheim’s feet. The German yanked off both of Nessheim’s shoes, then pulled his trousers off altogether, tossing them in a heap by the pilot house.

Beringer’s expression was intent and all-business, like a surgeon halfway through an operation.

‘Who sent you to Vermont?’ Schultz demanded.

‘I joined because I wanted to,’ Nessheim insisted, trying to ignore the pain in his arm and concentrate on his answer. ‘My parents are German, so I was interested.’

He hoped this sounded plausible, and was relieved to see Schultz nod. But then he said, ‘Noch mal.’ This time Beringer pressed the cigar against the inside of his upper thigh. Pain shot through Nessheim like needles, and he only dimly realised he was crying out loud – the odd wailing sound didn’t seem to come from him. He gagged, and his gorge rose uncontrollably. Suddenly he retched violently, and vomit shot out of his mouth all over the deck.

‘Yeck!’ Schultz exclaimed in disgust, spattered by the stream of sick. He stepped back reflexively, lowering the gun as he looked down at his stained trousers. Momentarily, Heydeman’s hold relaxed, and Nessheim sprang up. Heydeman tried to grab him, but it was too late – Nessheim jumped forwards just out of his reach. Schultz began to lift his gun, but Nessheim took two quick steps and stiff-armed the German, sending him sprawling onto the deck. He sensed Beringer behind him and ran halfway down the boat, then without hesitation dived off the starboard side.

He hit the water in a shallow dive that made his chest and belly burn. He surfaced moments later, sputtering and tasting salt on his lips, and felt the saline sting where Beringer had put his cigar. A wave surged around his shoulders, and he shivered as it unfurled like ice across the back of his neck. Christ it’s cold was his first thought. He saw that he was only 50 feet or so from the boat, and could clearly make out the figures of Schultz and Heydeman peering from the side. If he could see them, he started to think … Then something whizzed at terrific speed past his head and he heard the sound of a pistol firing almost simultaneously.

He jack-knifed into the cold water, desperate to get out of the mild halo of light that would give him away. He swam underwater away from the boat until he thought he would burst. Coming up at last, he tried to break surface gently, doing his best not to gasp for air too loudly. Peering through the dark, he saw that the boat had moved, but in the wrong direction, and was now a longish football pass distant. Beringer must be at the wheel, and Schultz or Heydeman was holding a flashlight on the starboard side, moving the beam back and forth across the water. The light arced wider and wider until it started to come Nessheim’s way. He dove again, jacking his legs up and forcing himself down.

He came up gradually, then saw to his alarm that this time Beringer had made a better guess, for the boat was only 20 feet away. Fortunately Beringer had swung the bow round, so the port side of The Braunau was facing Nessheim. He could hear indistinct voices from the boat, with the odd comprehensible word or two. Once he even thought he recognised the name ‘Le Saux’.

They had shot at him, which meant they weren’t interested in hauling him aboard again to make him talk. So why were they searching for him so hard, since they must know his chances of surviving out here in the water were nil? Why were they bothering?

The answer was they weren’t. Schultz appeared once more at the stern and shouted out to the indiscriminate waves – ‘Viel Glück!’ And Beringer revved the motor, swung the wheel sharply round, and The Braunau accelerated away.

No wonder he had heard the name of Eddie Le Saux – Nessheim was going to be left to drown. Nessheim could imagine what had happened to Le Saux, out on Lake Michigan, the night-time water the colour of lead lining a coffin. Eddie’s coffin. Heydeman would have taken his boat out and met Le Saux ‘by accident’. He’d have tied up to Le Saux’s boat and shared a smoke and a beer, persuading Eddie to take off his life jacket for a few minutes, long enough to let Heydeman grab Le Saux and throw him overboard, then drive the tied-together boats away, leaving Le Saux to drown and his body to float ashore without an incriminating mark on it.

As Nessheim’s might in time – or else get swept out into the mid-Atlantic to serve as fish food. From Schultz’s account, the currents here were capable of anything. Either way, there would be nothing suspicious about his death, just the dark cloud of a tragic accident.

Nessheim tried to shut down these thoughts and collect himself. His body had become acclimatised to the water, which was not as cold as he had first feared – in the low 60s, he guessed, which meant he could stay alive in it for several hours. But the insistent choppy waves made treading water tiring; he found a gentle breast stroke less fatiguing, and it also gave him some sense of moving to the safety of a shore, however distant. Just as he felt he was getting used to the rhythm of the waves, however, one broke out of nowhere and filled his nose with salt water. He snorted, tried to breathe, then another wave struck. He sputtered and coughed and was almost sick again, then slowly caught his breath, frightened by how much effort it took.

He had no idea which way to swim. He needed to go north towards Montauk and the chance of meeting a boat, but which direction was it? He tried to look around him, but the bumpy waves blocked his view of anything but the black curtain of sky. Then as a wave receded he glimpsed to his right the faintest chalk-coloured crack in the dark. Maybe morning was not a million miles away. East must be to his right, so he swam, slowly, steadily, straight ahead, hoping he was due south of Montauk so that he would hit it in time. Time? Three days’ worth of swim.

He refused to think about his chances, and focused instead on who had betrayed him back home. It had to have been Uncle Eric, he thought. Though how he’d known his nephew was an FBI agent was a mystery. And always going to stay that way, Nessheim thought in a sudden spasm of fury, suddenly splashing hard through the waves in a furious crawl stroke. Stop it, he told himself, slowing down. He had to keep his emotions under control.

From time to time, he rolled over on his back and tried to rest, floating, but the waves would break over his face, so he could only lie undisturbed for the length of a held-in breath. Sometimes he extended his arms straight ahead – in a double Hitler salute he felt Schultz would have appreciated – and floated on his belly, buoyed by a salinity that was novel to him, for he only knew swimming in fresh water. Then a somnolence would set in, and he would lift up in a jerk, frightened that dozing off would lead to death.

Cramp was developing spasmodically in his feet, then in his hands. He dreaded getting a stitch in his side, since there was nowhere to rest and recover from it. He didn’t know if two hours had passed, or two minutes, but he was alarmed by the tiredness he felt in his limbs – and in his mind. There was something peaceful and alluring about the vast body of ocean around him. Increasingly he was putting his head down into the salt water, where he kept his mouth tightly shut so there was no chance of swallowing the cusp of a wave. Each time he did this he found it harder to lift himself up and swim. Once he almost opened his mouth, then some instinct warned him off – he knew he wouldn’t survive the coughing fit that a large slug of salt water would bring on.

He felt too tired to fight. If only he could stand on something, just for a minute, he was sure he could go on for the forever it was going to take to save him. He started to dream of a ledge he might find, or a fisherman’s warning buoy; anything that would relieve the pressure, even for a few seconds, of keeping himself afloat.

Then, as he lay with his head face down, not even bothering to kick, he thought he heard a low throb reverberating in the water. An ocean liner perhaps, on its way into the Manhattan lower docks. Or a freighter delivering God knows what from Europe to a Jersey port. Lifting his head, he tried to look round, but the only sign of daybreak was far east to his right, where in the distant skyline the chalk-coloured crack had expanded into a milky haze on the horizon. There was no other sign of light, and he was growing too tired to generate a fantasy of rescue.

He heard the throb again when he dipped his head back down into the water. It seemed closer. He stopped swimming, treading water with hands he could no longer feel, and this time there was a pinprick of light in the distance. Or was it an illusion? In any case, it could be many miles away. He realised that the early-morning daylight was creeping in around him, bit by bit, and that the sky ahead was now the colour of smoke, rather than the ebony sheet of an hour before.

The throbbing had stopped, but the light was there – and it didn’t seem miles away, after all. He heard nothing now, but the light galvanised him, and he lifted his head and shouted ‘Help!’ with an energy he didn’t know he had left.

The throbbing started up again, and he realised it was the engine of a boat. For a moment the light flickered, then it came closer again. Closer, and closer; despite himself, Nessheim felt hope stir. The engine cut out suddenly, and Nessheim realised that was his chance. ‘Help!’ he shouted, sensing it was the last time he would be able to make enough noise. A beam suddenly zipped across the water in front of him, then zipped back again. It was moving side to side, like a scythe whipped against a field of high grass, and finally it reached Nessheim. Terrified it would just keep moving past him, he struggled to lift his arms, and he moved around in the water, trying to make a visible commotion.

But unbelievably, the light moved on, and then went out, followed by the noise of the engine starting up. Despair engulfed him like flu. He wanted to shout out but simply couldn’t – he was all but done in by his last efforts.

The noise of the engine was lost in the pounding of his heart and heaving strangled noises he dimly realised were his own sobs. He lay flat on his stomach, floating like a dead man, trying not to think that he would be one soon enough. He only barely took notice of the beam of light when it appeared again, full flush on his turned-down face.

And then he lifted his head and to his disbelief saw the low curved wooden bow of a boat, not 20 feet away. He thought at first he must be hallucinating.

A voice said, ‘Hang on, I’m coming.’ And then within seconds he felt two hands gripping him by the shoulders and the same voice said, ‘Can you lift your arms?’

Somehow he managed to, and found himself hoisted against the gunwales, then pulled an inch at a time, until his weight finally carried him over the side and into the boat.

He lay there on the rough wet planks, breathing heavily. He could hear footsteps on the planks, and a moment later he sensed the man kneeling down beside him. He carried a blanket and sat Nessheim up as he wrapped it around him.

So it wasn’t a dream. He looked up and there was now enough daylight for him to see his rescuer. ‘Smitty,’ he whispered in disbelief, his teeth chattering.

‘My real name’s Sidney. Sidney Washington,’ said the black cook. His voice was different – there was nothing Step ’N’ Fetchit to it now.

‘How did you find me?’ His teeth still chattered, but he had to know.

‘Needle in a haystack, really. That boat came past me on its way back to Montauk; I had to duck down pretty quick since those people know me from the camp. But I took a look and there weren’t any sign of you. I had a pretty good idea of where you might be, but we were awful lucky just the same.’

‘But what were you doing out here?’

‘Following the boat. Mr Guttman told me if anything happened to you, he’d see I’d never drive for Mr Hoover again.’

‘He sent you to the camp?’

‘That’s right. Made me go learn to cook first at some Jewish place in the Catskills.’

‘Was that you at the Apollo the other night?’

‘Hope you liked my suit.’ He stood up. ‘We best be going. If I give you a hand, do you think you can walk as far as that?’ He gestured to the dwarf pilot house in the middle of the skiff. ‘I have a little brandy there to keep you warm. We got us a couple of hours’ ride, since the last place we want to pitch up at is Montauk. Far as Schultz is concerned, you’re drowned. We need to keep it that way.’

‘I’ve got to get to a phone and call Guttman.’

‘We’ve got time.’ They were moving slowly across the planks, Smitty holding his arm. ‘And Guttman’s not going to be too hard to find – everybody’s working this weekend.’

‘Why’s that?’ he said, shivering badly. They had reached the pilot house, where Sidney shifted the captain’s chair from behind the wheel and had Nessheim sit down.

‘You wouldn’t have heard,’ said Sidney as he turned the key in the tiny wheelhouse. The engine gave a short cough, then caught. Nessheim looked out to sea, east towards Europe, and saw a raw sun the colour of fire looming just beneath the day’s low cloud. ‘Heard what?’ he asked, suddenly overcome by fatigue.

‘The Nazis have invaded Poland. There’s going to be a war now.’