The German Suitcase Read Online Free Page B

sight of the hand-painted data—that Stacey and Tannen had been careful to conceal during their presentation—was like going over the handlebars at high speed. Steinbach flinched, taken aback. He knew what it meant. He knew the ugly story this piece of vintage Steinbach could tell.
    Tannen saw his reaction and winced. “Sorry, we were hoping you wouldn’t see that, Sol.”
    Stacey nodded. “Yeah, we weren’t planning on using this one, Mr. Steinbach.”
    Steinbach’s busy eyes widened in an incredulous stare. “Why the hell not?”
    “Well, we’re…we’re pretty sure it’s from the Holocaust,” Tannen replied, clearly surprised. “And we—”
    “No shit, Sherlock. I know where the hell it’s from.” Steinbach pointed to the hand painted data. “That’s his group number and prisoner reference number. They were assigned at the deportation center.”
    “Well, Sol, we felt it might be…be inappropriate to use the Holocaust to sell luggage. If you don’t find it offensive, then, maybe, we could—”
    “Offensive?” Steinbach interrupted again. “No, no, it’s controversial. It’ll get plenty of attention.”
    Tannen rolled his eyes. “Yeah like from the Jewish Defense League, the Wiesenthal Center, the W.J.C…” The latter was a reference to the World Jewish Congress.
    “Hey, I give a lot of money to those guys,” Steinbach protested. He removed his suit jacket, then unfastened the cufflink on his left sleeve and pushed it up to his elbow, revealing a tattoo on the outside of his forearm. The faded numerals read: A178362. “The ‘A’ is for Auschwitz,” he explained bristling with anger. “On women, the number was followed by a tiny triangle because with our shaved heads and emaciated bodies the Nazis couldn’t tell one sex from the other unless we were naked.”
    Stacey was visibly shaken. She’d learned what she knew about the Holocaust from living on the Upper West Side, her classes at Columbia, and the movies. When she was growing up in Lubbock, the state school board was more interested in the theory of Creationism than the fate of six million Jews in World War Two; and the only holocaust she heard about was the nuclear kind. The one ‘them commies’ were about to unleash. Stacey had never come face to face with a survivor, and gasped, softly, “Oh my God…”
    “Exactly,” Steinbach said. “We used to say that a thousand times a day. The Jews are God’s chosen people? Chosen for what? Living hell?!” He shifted his look to Tannen. “So, we can dispense with the lectures on what’s appropriate or offensive. Okay?”
    “Sure. I’m really sorry, Sol,” Tannen said like a chastised child. “In this business you learn to walk on eggs when it comes to these things.”
    “No way you could know unless you’ve lived it,” Steinbach said, absolving him. “I was five years old when Auschwitz was liberated. I won’t go into what I did to survive.” He rolled down his sleeve and went about affixing the cufflink. “Father, mother, sisters all gone. And while they were being dehumanized, raped and exterminated, one of our biggest competitors—then and now—had a sign in the window of their store on the Champs-Elysees that said, No Dogs, No Jews.”
    “Louie Vee?” Tannen prompted with disbelief.
    Steinbach nodded, grimly. “Hey, it’s no secret. You can Google it. Then, they were collaborators. Now, they’re a conglomerate.”
    “LVMH, right?” Stacey said, already thumbing the keys on her Blackberry.
    “Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, SA,” Steinbach said with exaggerated pretention. “Somebody wrote a book about the company and mentioned how they made money by playing ball with Petain and his pro-Nazi government.”
    “Found it,” Stacey said, scrolling down the screen. “Louis Vuitton, A French Saga, by Stephanie Bonvicini.” She scrolled again, and added, “In response to the charges the company worked with the Nazis, a spokesman said: ‘This is ancient