XPD. Len Deighton

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       Chapter 10

      The job in California did not prove to be the sun-drenched poolside sinecure that Boyd Stuart’s girlfriend Kitty had predicted. A couple of weeks later – still devoid of suntan – he was sitting in a grimy office on Venice Boulevard in Los Angeles, talking to an earnest young Englishman.

      This near to the freeway, the boulevard is a six-lane highway strung with overhead wires, littered with palms and generously provided with gas stations and religious meeting halls. The buildings are low and hastily finished. In June they are hot and the noise of the heavy traffic loud and unceasing.

      The Secret Intelligence Service in London had made contact with Lustig Productions’ new man, Max Breslow. They had found a young commercial attaché in the British embassy in Washington who had once had dealings with Breslow about a previous film production. Now he had been urgently sent to Los Angeles in order to bump ‘accidentally’ into his old acquaintance in the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

      Stuart’s visitor was wearing a dark blue flannel blazer with regimental buttons and a motoring-club badge on the pocket. His hair was long and straight and so was his nose. Even without the accent and the clothes, there would be no mistaking him for anything other than what Jennifer called ‘Eton and Harrods’.

      ‘There would in fact be considerable advantages if this fellow actually made the film in England,’ said the visitor. He looked round the dingy little office which the department had provided for this meeting. It was his first experience of Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service.

      ‘Spare me all that sales talk,’ said Boyd Stuart wearily. ‘Just tell me about Max Breslow.’ From somewhere at the back of the building there came the sound of someone practising scales on an out-of-tune piano.

      ‘Not just the government allowances that all films can get, but special tax deals can be arranged if he uses British crews and British studios.’

      This was the right man to send, noted Stuart approvingly. No one could doubt this lad’s pitch was anything but sincere. He wondered how much they had confided in him before sending him. ‘How old is Breslow? What’s he know about the film industry?’

      ‘He’s old enough to set up a film,’ said the young man with a smile. He poured himself some more tea from the teapot on the desk. ‘He’s a businessman. He’s put together a couple of small productions in New York using front money from Germany and then sold them to television on the strength of the rough assembly. He’s got good contacts in Germany.’

      ‘Television?’

      ‘Television here in America, but cut into a feature film for Europe and Asia. It’s done quite a lot nowadays.’

      ‘Only two films?’

      ‘Only two here but he’s produced a dozen or more cheapies in Europe, mostly in German studios. He works with an executive producer who stays with the movie while Breslow goes after the money boys.’ He drank some tea and then said, ‘Breslow isn’t an old-time movie mogul. He’s not a Goldwyn or a Cohn. You won’t meet any stars sipping champagne round his pool. He doesn’t live in Beverly Hills or Bel Air. He has a modest little condominium somewhere out near Thousand Oaks on the way to Ventura and shares his pool with a few neighbours. No, Breslow is not a movie man. You only have to talk to him for five minutes to discover that. He couldn’t distinguish a zoom lens from a Coke bottle, and he’s perfectly willing to admit it.’ The young man stretched his feet out and propped his teacup and saucer on his chest. Doubtless it was a mannerism copied from some elderly tutor, a rich uncle or an ambassador, thought Stuart. ‘You can see if you agree. I’ve fixed an invitation to dinner for you chez Breslow tomorrow. He thinks you represent a firm with money to invest in films.’ The piano exercises paused for a mercifully long time, then started from the beginning once more.

      ‘Breslow’s in his fifties … a well-preserved sixty perhaps. I’m not trained for the cloak-and-dagger stuff.’ The visitor smiled but, getting no response to his smile, continued. ‘Quite tall, lots of hair, no sign of going grey. Good firm handshake, if that’s anything to go by, and very friendly.’

      ‘Has anyone put him on the computer?’

      The visitor drank his tea and looked at Stuart. In Washington they had hinted that he was going to meet one of the SIS’s best agents but the young man found Boyd Stuart older, wearier and far less polished than he had expected. ‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘that’s something I’m not supposed to know about, but I’d say it’s rather unlikely.’

      ‘Why unlikely?’

      ‘My briefing was rather circumspect, old chap, but I gathered that nothing is so far being communicated to our American friends. And we both know that anything that goes through the Bonn computer will be known in Washington within twenty-four hours.’

      Stuart nodded and concluded that his visitor was less idiotic than his manner would indicate. ‘Have some more tea,’ he said, ‘and tell me what else you got out of him.’

      ‘You brought this with you, I suppose,’ said the visitor, watching the tea being poured. ‘It’s a damned funny thing, I buy the self-same brand of English tea in my supermarket in Washington and it never tastes the same.’

      ‘You think he’s going to make the film?’

      ‘He didn’t seem to be in a great hurry.’

      ‘I heard he has a script.’

      ‘It’s СКАЧАТЬ