CHAPTER SEVEN
Lunch with Elmer Mueller couldn’t have been worse. The man was another type, Lindsey thought. Or maybe he was catching part of Mother’s strangeness, seeing everyone and everything in terms of media images.
If Morton Karl Kleiner had been an avatar of Hans Schumm, then Elmer Mueller was a reflection of Martin Kosleck. Maybe it was Mueller’s choice of restaurants that helped create the atmosphere. Mueller had insisted on eating at a rathskeller in Emeryville. He had an appointment there all morning and another in the afternoon and he didn’t want to drive his Mercedes all the way back to Oakland. So Emeryville it was.
The place was dank and smelled of stale alcohol and staler cigarette smoke. The decor was phony beer hall, something out of a bad travelog urging rich Americans
