“That’s my real address, that’s my real name too,” snorted Josef, no longer able to keep his voice down.

“I can’t sell you the equipment. Sorry.”

He reached into his jacket pocket, took out his ID, and slammed it down on the table. The salesman took a quick look at it.

“Thanks a lot. Now, what exactly was the problem?”

“There is no problem. That was the problem.”

“Sometimes I just don’t get you Germans.”

“I’m not German. I’m a citizen.”

“You’ll always be a German.”

He didn’t wait for the salesman to pack the items up. He just threw everything into his briefcase. A copper clamp fell to the ground. He picked it up and hurried out of the shop.

22

New York, May 1939

WHEN HE DIDN’T SEE LAUREN IN THE LOBBY, HE GOT UNEASY. He was a bit late. He bought two tickets, waited five minutes, then joined the line outside the theatre. There was text printed on the back of his ticket: IF HITLER MOVES INTO THE WHITE HOUSE, EVERY PERSON WHO SEES THIS FILM WILL BE ARRESTED. Very funny. But every now and then he heard someone laughing.

The theatre was under guard—two cops standing on either side of the door. He’d worked his way up to the entrance when, behind him, he heard Lauren calling his name. She was holding popcorn and soda. “Can’t watch Nazis without popcorn.”

They sat in the second-to-last row; all the way in the back sat the perverts, even if they couldn’t expect much inspiration from this movie. He sank into the plushy embrace of the theatre seat. They didn’t talk. First previews, then the movie: the Warner Bros. fanfare sounded, then ominous strings. Confessions of a Nazi Spy flickered over the screen.

A silhouetted figure told of an espionage case in New York; the confessions of the agents were “stranger than fiction.”

A meeting hall in New York. Swastikas on the wall and a banner: NUR EINER SCHAFFT’S: DER FÜHRER! HALTE IHM DIE TREUE! Only one man can get it done: the Führer! Keep the faith with him!

Stiff-walking Germans—they had a hard time with the English but it was all the easier for them to lift their arms in salute. “Toomorrow ze verld iss auers. Heil Hitler!” They all seemed thoroughly foolish. The audience laughed. Why the hell did he pick this of all movies to take Lauren to?

Nazis dropping flyers out of a stunt plane flying over New York: THE PRESIDENT IS A COMMUNIST! And: HITLER WANTS PEACE!

In the back room of a Yorkville restaurant—wasn’t that the Old Heidelberg?—a frightened man who wants to stop working for the German spy network is being put through the wringer by burly Gestapo men. “Have you ever heard of an organization known as the Gestapo? We’ll forget it this time.”