Costello nodded wisely. “I get it. Leverage. Very big leverage.”
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“Very big. But Yves must have some heavy money coming from
somewhere with a wife like that to support.”
“So?”
“The more I think about it, Ray, the more I’m ready to bet that he’s been
partner all along in whatever Baar set up, including that airlines kickback
racket. He’s probably been getting most of his income from it.”
“Could be. How much of an income?”
I said, “My cut came to between eight and ten thousand a year for a few
easy deliveries. And I was only a handyman.”
“A ten percenter,” said Costello.
“A one percenter at most. I was probably paid out of petty cash.”
Costello did some mental arithmetic “So,” he said, “there’s still a hell of
a lot of dough coming through that pipe line. And you want to plug up the pipe
line. But how?”
“Tell Williams I’m taking a flyer in the market. He’s to get me a hundred
shares each in some airlines operating between the States and Europe. And
North Africa. Here’s the list of them. No questions. Immediate purchase at the
market price.”
“What does that do for you?”
“It makes me a concerned shareholder.”
“You’re kidding, Davey. You really look to turn that van Zee stuff over
to those outfits?”
“Only selected sections of it, all names deleted. And only to the
chairman of the board. The man where the buck stops.”
“So then the pipe line starts to dry up.” Costello paid me the compliment
of a broad smile. “Pretty,” he said. “If it works.”
“It will. Get Williams on it right now. And don’t forget about signing up
Wylie.”
Oscar didn’t sign up all that easily. I was already back on South Bay
Shore Drive, fully repaired, when he phoned me from the Coast. Having
pinballed down the machine for ten years without lighting any lights or ringing
any bells he was plainly uneasy about this sudden rescue from oblivion by an
old enemy. “If you don’t mind my asking, Shaw, why me?”
“Because, Oscar, what you put into Hot Wheels is what I want in my
picture.”
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“You saw Hot Wheels?”
“I not only saw it,” I told him truthfully, “I have a print of it here.”
“You have?”
Uneasy or not, he was being offered a handsome producer-director
contract by someone who plainly admired his talents. It was enough.
He showed up in Miami as soon as the contract was signed, the same
skinny, sharp-nosed Connecticut Yankee. I led him to his room and made talk
about his masterpiece Hot Wheels while he was stowing away his belongings.
When he had everything in Oscar Wylie apple-pie order I handed him the
précis of The Last Hippie I had worked up, along with Grete’s translation of
the article Berti van Stade had done on Jan van Zee. I explained what they
were. “Now read them, Oscar, and tell me what we’ve got here.”
Oscar wasn’t the fastest reader in the world, but eventually he came to
the end of the last page. “Well,” he said, “I can see why Hot Wheels grabbed
you. Same thing going about the rebel without a cause. Same feel to it. And
we’ve got an edge here I didn’t have with Hot Wheels because this van Zee is
an actual person.”
“He is. Which brings up a problem.”
“A problem?” said Oscar warily.
I said, “I was doing the tourist bit in Holland three years ago when
somebody brought this article to my attention. It struck me that here was
material begging to be filmed. A story that would show, through a young
drifter named Jan van Zee, a life style already dying out. I finally met him, and
we made a handshake deal. He wasn’t going to sit down and write any
autobiography, but he would send me letters regularly and get everything into
them, past and present. In return, I’d supply him with money whenever he
needed it. When I felt I had all the material I needed we’d go into production,
and he’d collect a final payment then.”
Oscar was fully on guard again. “All handshake?” he said. “Nothing
signed?”
“It was a case of doing it his way or not at all. Now for the problem. A
few months ago I let him know I was ready to start production. I haven’t heard
from him yet.”
“Haven’t heard? But, Dave, you can’t even —”
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”I know,” I said solemnly. “No signature, no production. But he’ll turn
up. That’ll be my job when we get to Paris next week, locating him.
Meanwhile, you’ll be shaping up this material for a screenwriter. And while
you’re at it, Oscar, there’s something to keep in mind. The young lady I
introduced you to downstairs —”
”Grete?”
“Grete. Well, she’s slated for a part in the picture. I’ll leave you to work
out the best way of handling that.”
That did it. Gone was all wariness forever, because here was the
explanation to the mystery. Dave Shaw wasn’t the first monied citizen to invest
in show biz out of lust for a lady. Oscar came close to leering at me. “You can
count on me, Dave.”
“I knew I could. By the way, how are you on publicity? Can you give the
production a big build-up in Europe before we even land there?”
“I hate to sound my own bugle, Dave, but when it comes to PR I’m very
heavy. And we’ve got a beautiful handle here. Not only this hippie material,
but the search for the mysterious author himself. And there’s Grete for
cheesecake. By the time we hit Paris we’ll have a red-hot campaign cooking
there.”
Costello, in our strategy session that night, said, “How did it go with
Mister Wonderful?”
“Headed in the right direction and rolling fast.”
“Good. And that’s not all that’s rolling fast. Frenchy booked into a hotel
in Brussels for overnight. He and Leewarden had supper there. In the middle
of it, a third party sat down with them.”
“Baar?”
“Sorry, but this one was strictly American. Name of Gardiner Fremont
according to the hotel register.”
“He might be a go-between for some airlines, telling them the heat is
on.”
“Not from what the agency man took down of their talk. Listen to this.”
Costello squinted at his notebook. “Frenchy said, ‘Dead, both of them. And
they were the only ones who knew where they hid it.’ Then Fremont said, ‘I’m
a computer expert. That means I have a very logical mind. I tell you I don’t
believe it.’”
130
“And then?”
“Then Frenchy started to say something about bad judgment — the Detec
man thinks it was that — but Leewarden piped them both down because they
were getting too loud.” Costello gave me his cat-that-ate-the-canary smile.
“Are you thinking what I am?”
I said, “What else is there to think? That million dollar check-forging
swindle on L.A. was set up by computer. Fremont has to be the one who
worked that computer.”
“And here he
is,” said Costello, “come to collect his cut and thinking
he’s getting the double-cross. Anyhow, I already told the agency to have
somebody on him night and day. If Frenchy and Leewarden steer him to the
Dutchman, we go right along with him.”
“In that case,” I said, “it’s time to start pulling some long-distance
strings.”
In the dossier on Jean-Pierre de Liasse, the ever-efficient Detec had
provided a series of phone numbers including that of the Château de Liasse at
Chaumont, the family estate where I finally reached Jean-Pierre. “David
Shaw?” he said. “But of course! Monsieur Stampfli’s! The genius at football.
My God, but it’s been a long time.”
“It has. But I suddenly remembered I owed you some money. I wanted
you to know you can expect repayment very soon.”
“You owe me money?”
“A hundred francs. For one secondhand bicycle.”
He laughed. “But that machine was in terrible shape, dear friend. I was
swindling you outrageously.”
“Then I regard the debt as cancelled. But I will be in Paris day after
tomorrow, Jean-Pierre, and I did want to see you for old time’s sake.”
“Delighted. I planned to be here at Chaumont a bit longer — a few days
of holding mama’s hand, you understand — but I’ll gladly cut that short. And
you’ll be my guest at my apartment in Paris. You’ll find it most comfortable.”
“Kind of you, Jean-Pierre, but I’m with some business associates, and
I’ve already arranged for all of us to be at the Meurice.”
“Business, hey? Well, business or not, we’ll have time with each other.
Yes. So delighted.”
No more than I.
131
Oscar delivered the goods.
There were reporters and press photographers waiting at the airport in
Paris, not many, but enough to indicate that here might be a celebrity in the
making. There was a VIP lounge set aside for the interviews. At the sight of
the first camera aimed in her direction, Grete put herself on full, seductive
display, and the press took to her immediately. Beneficiary of reflected glory,
I was then given the treatment ordinarily reserved for a Bergman or Fellini.
Our entrance into the Meurice was at least as impressive, and, most
gratifying of all, upstairs in my suite I found waiting a magnum of Dom
Perignon ’66 with card attached. The card bore the elaborate crest of de
Liasse. Its message read Will you share this evening with me to celebrate
your arrival? Please call at once.
Good. Better than good.
The pied-à-terre on Avenue Montaigne was a luxurious apartment
largely dedicated to stereo equipment. I remembered Jean-Pierre as lean and
sardonic. I discovered that while he was still trim of figure, he was,
unbelievably, maudlin about the old school days. For his part, he was taken
aback when I asked that we converse in English, my French having rusted
badly after years of disuse. But once over these hurdles, we got along as if we
were in fact dear old friends.
We covered school days at length, and then Jean-Pierre said, “Your
mother. How is she?”
“All right, I suppose. I rarely see her.”
“Ah, well. Of course you wouldn’t know I was in love with her from the
first time she visited you at the lycée, would you? No, don’t smile. It was quite
serious as far as I was concerned. What moonstruck animals boys can be.
When she divorced your father I actually dreamed that some day I might tempt
her into marriage, never mind the grotesque discrepancy in age. After all, I
could offer her a title. Women, you must know, are strangely susceptible to
titles.”
“Dear mother,” I said. “Madame Ia Comtesse.”
“Amusing, no? But not to my mama, dear old snob that she is. To her, the
indescribably boring world of the aristocracy — that dreary index in the
132
Almanach de Gotha — is all that matters. She wouldn’t admit under torture
that what she lives on are the proceeds of a commercial enterprise.”
“Well,” I said, “from an outsider’s view, the aristo does inhabit a highly
glamorous world. I note that as an expert. Glamor happens to be my business.”
“Your film business, you mean. Yes, you made quite a splash in the
newspapers this morning. But is all that true? I refer to the young Dutchman
who was writing your screenplay and mysteriously disappeared before
completing it.”
“All true, unfortunately.”
“Too bad. But at least you are involved in work which has, as you say, a
certain glamor. That girl, now that we’re on the subject. The one photographed
with you. An adorable little beauty, isn’t she?”
“She is,” I said. It had taken a long time, but here we were at last.
“Yes,” said Jean-Pierre. “Ah — I suppose that between you two there is
a rather special arrangement?”
“None at all.” We looked at each other with complete understanding.
“An adorable little beauty,” I said, “and extremely susceptible. I’m sure she’d
be overwhelmed by an introduction to Monsieur le Comte.”
“I’m pleased to hear that. Now if you will only —”
”But,” I cut in, “you have the advantage of me in one large regard. I’ve
never met your mother. Never even gotten a glimpse of her world. To me the
Almanach de Gotha remains a book with tightly closed covers.”
“Indeed?” He considered the implications of this. “My dear friend, if
what you seek as film-maker is a close view of the ancien régime in modem
dress, I’m afraid you’re in for a dreary time of it.”
“Perhaps. But the film-maker’s needs — especially in dealing with
cinema vérité —”
Jean-Pierre nodded wisely. “Yes, I thought that was it. Well, God
willing, Mama may be in an amiable mood next weekend. She’ll be in Paris
then for one of her terrible salons. If you — and the young lady — have no
other plans for that afternoon —”
”None.”
“Then you shall receive an invitation to attend. I trust I’ll see you both
there.” He raised his glass. “Now a toast to old friendships?”
“And new ones,” I said.
133
Aslow news week evidently.
Reuters and some other news services picked up the van Zee story as an
entertaining tidbit and spread it far and wide. Now, with journalists feeding on
journalists, there were more interviews, and Grete was aglow, gathering
newspapers from all corners of the Continent, setting up her own pressclipping
service.
Oscar, on the other hand, was disgruntled. “I’ve got stories planted in
damn near everything printed this side of Siberia,” he complained, “and still
no sign of your wandering boy. It makes rough going, Dave, when I work over
that material of his wondering what happens if he never shows up.”
“Oscar,” I said, “if you’ve worked over that material, you know he’s
subject to criminal charges in half a dozen countries. That means he’s going to
move very carefully, make sure there’s no trap being set for him before he
shows up. But he will sh
ow up.”
“If you say so, Dave.”
“I do. How’s Williams making out with his cost estimates?”
“Well, for a guy who’s new at it, he’s showing a real talent for this
business. He’s already set up meetings with some French film people who can
give him an inside look at production costs here.”
“Good. Stay with it, Oscar.”
My suite was for this kind of by-play. Costello’s room adjoining it was
for serious business. Here, with Detec close by, he could watch the pieces
move around the board on an almost hourly basis and record the moves on the
growing stack of index cards he kept locked away in his desk drawer. If Yves
publicly dined in company, Costello had a description of each member of it
before the check was paid. If Leewarden had a lengthy conversation with
someone in Piccadilly, Costello had the description of that someone soon
after. No description, however, matched the one of Kees I had given the
agency. And the reports on Gardiner Fremont indicated that after his meeting
with Yves and Leewarden he had simply holed up in a pension in Brussels and
seemed to have no contact with anyone at all.
134
Costello said, “That means he never did buy Frenchy’s story about van
Zee hijacking the money. And since the Dutchman is top man of the gang,
Fremont is probably waiting for him to show up and pay off.”
“That makes two of us,” I said.
I went through the stack of index cards again and again, trying to piece
together patterns from them, and sometimes this made for a gnawing
frustration. Vahna Rouart-Rochelle, for example, whether during her weekly
London expeditions or at home could never be found alone in the presence of
any male other than her husband, could never be charged with sending out even
a ripple of scandal.
“If she made one little slip,” I told Costello, “that’s all I’d need. I could
move right in on her.”
“She probably figures one little slip means she gets her arm broken by
Frenchy. Or worse. Give up on that angle. Work out some way of getting at her
through the London trips. Those gambling holidays of hers. That’s probably
happy time as far as she’s concerned.”
Sound advice, if the lady continued playing that unexpected role, the
faithful wife.
On occasion, a report offered encouragement. Most gratifying during this
bad time was one from far away. A phone call from banker Owen Bibb in
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