The Eighth Dwarf by Ross Thomas

Germany’s first postwar tourist. You’d be just in time for the Oktoberfest. But I think we’d better come up with something just a tiny bit more blatant so that the Army can understand it. Let me think.” Orr closed his eyes. When he opened them a few moments later he was smiling. “Next Thursday at Two.”
    â€œJesus.”
    â€œSurprised?”
    â€œNobody knows about that.”
    â€œI do,” Orr said. “But then, I know everything. It really wasn’t that bad a play. I’m surprised it was never produced.”
    â€œI’m not.”
    â€œBut there we have it, you see. Minor Jackson, noted playwright, war hero—I must dig up that medal—and, let’s see, what else have you done?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œNo matter. You have decided to turn your sensitive gaze on postwar Germany and to write, I think, a book; yes, a book about what you have seen with your own eyes. A friend of mine’s in publishing in New York, and I can get a letter down from him with no problem, since it won’t cost him a penny. After that, I’ll simply walk it through. Let me have your passport”
    Jackson took his passport out and handed it over. Orr thumbed through it idly and said, “Rather a nice likeness.”
    Jackson swallowed some more of his drink and, keeping his voice toneless and casual, said, “Did you ever hear of a Romanian who calls himself Nicolae Ploscaru?”
    Still thumbing through the passport, Orr said, “The wicked dwarf. Where ever did you hear of him? He worked for us once, you know, in—when was it—’44, ’45? He was most capable. Expensive, but capable.”
    â€œWhat’d he do?”
    Orr tucked Jackson’s passport away in an inside pocket, patted it protectively, and said, “We used him to see what he could do about our wild-blue-yonder boys. You know, the ones who were shot down over Bucharest and Ploesti. We finally sent a team of our own in just before the Russians got there. Well, the dwarf had organized things to a fare-thee-well. The fly-boys swore by him. It seems that Ploscaru knew everybody in Romania—everybody worth knowing of course. His father had been a member of what passed for nobility in that dreadful country—a count, or perhaps a baron—and so the dwarf used his contacts to see that nothing bad happened to our lads. Some of them, in fact, were living off the fat of the land by the time our OSS team got there. The fliers gave the dwarf all the credit.”
    Orr put his glass up to his lips and stared at Jackson over its rim. It was a long, cool stare. When he brought the glass down, he said, “Still, he was such a wicked little man. We got into a frightful flap with the British over him. It had been one of those co-op things that never work out. I think they wanted to shoot him when it was all over, except that he couldn’t be found—or the fifty thousand in gold that we’d supplied. Gold sovereigns, as I recall. He simply disappeared, but we thought it was money well spent I’m curious. Where ever did you hear of him?”
    â€œIn a bar. In Mexico.”
    â€œSo that’s where he is?” Orr said. “I’ve sometimes wondered.”
    â€œHe’s not there, but somebody who’d known him was.”
    â€œWho?”
    â€œA cashiered British type who said his name was Baker-Bates.”
    â€œ Gilbert Baker-Bates?” Orr’s tone was almost incredulous.
    Jackson nodded.
    â€œ Gilbert Baker-Bates? The manic Major. Cashiered! Not likely, Minor. Why, poor old Gilbert’s now the rising star in the British firmament. Who ever told you that he was cashiered?”
    â€œSomebody who lies a lot,” Jackson said.

8
    The ruined castle, or Schloss, lay a mile or two out of Höchst, which made it not much more than a forty-minute drive from the center of Frankfurt. The castle has been ruined by time as well as by