The Alex Kovacs Series Box Set

by Richard Wake

  Again, placid face.

  "You have to understand," he said. "It's nothing specific, but the Germans are just strutting more. Have you noticed it? Do you deal with anybody at the legation? They're just -- they're such arrogant assholes anyway, but it's worse now. We can all sense it."

  Silence. Maybe a small nod.

  "We've been doing some digging," he said. "There might be 1,000 of them in Switzerland between the embassy in Bern and all of their legations. There's about six of them -- here, Geneva, Basel, St. Fucking Gallen, pretty much anywhere there's a dozen Swiss families."

  "A thousand?" I said. "Seems high."

  "Between the actual embassy employees, and the locals they've put on the payroll, we think it's 1,000, easy. And they're just starting to show up in the oddest places. I nearly bumped into one of their guys -- like physically bumped into him -- outside of a little Italian restaurant a couple of blocks away from where I grew up, and where my family still lives. Grimaldi's -- you ever heard of it? It's good, but it's no Orsini's, and it's about five miles from here, and there are 10 places just as good between here and there. There's no way somebody from the German legation would be in that neighborhood for no reason. It's got me spooked."

  "I get that." Just keep him talking.

  "Things like that have been happening to all of us. You try to convince yourself that life is full of coincidences, but there are just getting to be too many of them."

  "So what does Blum think?" Blum was the controller, the one who dressed up as the old man to open the original account.

  "He doesn't know what to think," Kensinger said. "Between you and me, he isn't that smart. And he's getting nothing from London. Like, no direction at all. So we've decided to act on behalf of self-preservation. We're going to take the money and use it to go deeper, go darker -- new safe houses, maybe a small base over the border in France. Hair dye for me, done professionally. Fuck it. The only thing I know for sure is I have to get this away from my family."

  When Kensinger walked in, I wasn't 100 percent sure that he did not know of my further involvement. But the fact that he never asked me what I had heard, or what I knew, and that he was willing to crap on his boss in my presence, told me that he did not consider me to be a player. I was just a connected outsider in his mind, maybe a shoulder to cry on because of the connection, nothing more than that, which was a relief. Part of me wanted to tell him what I knew, about the Ardennes and May 10th, but it wasn't my place to tell him. Besides, given that it only took 15 seconds of silence to break him, I didn't think trusting him with any of my secrets made a lot of sense.

  "Leave 5,000 francs and give me the rest," he said. I looked up the balance -- it was in the pile of paperwork on my desk -- and had him fill out a withdrawal ticket. He waited in my office while I took the satchel and handled the transaction myself. Marta was dying to get up from her desk and walk across the bank and look over my shoulder, but we still had enough of a boss-employee relationship that she stayed in her place. Besides, she would see the withdrawal ticket within minutes of Kensinger's departure, anyway. It was her job to keep the books.

  As it turned out, it was precisely four minutes.

  "Are you kidding me?" Marta said. She was waving the withdrawal slip.

  "It's his money."

  "And you just let him take it?"

  "I tried to talk him out of it."

  "Father to son?"

  "I went more for big brother to little brother," I said. "But it's their money. I don't know how many times I can tell you. Their money, their rules."

  "It's still wrong," she said. She was waving two things, actually -- the withdrawal slip and a telegram, which she remembered when she saw it. "Here. This came while you were doing such a bang-up job talking some sense into that spoiled brat."

  Marta had put me back in my place. All was again right in her world. She hummed as she sashayed back to her desk.

  Safely alone, I opened the envelope. The telegram said:

  Fred arrival May 10. Please prepare welcome and menu including apple fritters.

  "Fred" was France.

  "May 10" was May 10.

  "Fritters" was Fritz Ritter.

  This was a confirmation of the invasion date that Brodsky had received from his Russian army contact. It was entirely unsolicited, and it seemed beyond unlikely that Ritter's source was the same officer in the Russian high command. So May 10th was it. There could be no doubt now. Gregory and I sent the news to London that night.

  43

  Sechselauten was Zurich's "Six O'clock Festival." It was always near the end of April, always on a Monday, but the date hopped around a little bit from year to year, for whatever reason. It might have been my favorite Zurich-y thing. It was a celebration of the arrival of spring, and its roots were in the 6 o'clock church bells being run to signal the end of the workday, back-when. In the winter, you worked until it got dark. But as summer approached, and the days got longer, that wasn't practical -- so when it became necessary, they rang the church bells at 6, and everybody got to go home. This was a celebration of those bells, and the chance for the workers to see daylight again. They had bonfires and pageants and shit, and the highlight was the burning of Bogg, this great stuffed dummy held high on a pole. They said he was supposed to represent Old Man Winter. I think he was really supposed to represent their bosses.

  Whatever, it was an excuse to drink outdoors after work, down by the lake. Manon and I walked around and got lost in the crowds, drinks in hand, hand in hand, and I actually forgot about Hitler and the Ardennes and the Nazi gold and the rest of it, at least for a few minutes. We had 11 days before May 10th, 11 days for our bosses to get their heads out of their asses. There was still enough time to make a difference.

  After witnessing Bogg's glorious demise -- I had forgotten how much little children could squeal at the sight of a big fire -- we decided to walk back to Fessler's, not for dinner but maybe just dessert. We weren't two blocks away from the festival when the real world began crowding our thoughts.

  "Did I tell you the latest from my boss?" Manon said.

  She had not. I did not know her boss's name. I knew he was a man, based upon her choice of pronouns -- as in the phrase, “he's such a fucking asshole" -- but that was it. I had no idea about his age, or what he looked like, or where his office was, or anything.

  "I asked him about May 10th," she said. "And you know what he tells me? I can give it to you exactly, a direct quote. He says, 'May 10th is just a single date. The calendar is full of them. We must be prepared for all of them.' Jackass. He didn't say that. I said that. Fucking jackass."

  "May 10th is just a date, one of many," I said. "The Ardennes is just a point on the map, one of many. Shit. When you prepare for everything, you prepare for nothing. We are so doomed."

  "You hearing anything from your side?"

  "Not a word," I said.

  It was hard to know what might get their attention at this point. We had the Ardennes location from three different sources and the May 10th date from two. Short of a personal letter with the invasion plans, signed by Adolf himself, I don't know what else we could give them, or what else would make the French and British generals move.

  They had completely ignored the Denmark and Norway information. I mean, if they warned either country, it sure didn't show up in the military defense efforts. But this was different. This was France. This was the whole goddamned game. How could they not see? I mean, how could they ignore it? Did they really just sit around and drink sherry and talk about Verdun all night?

  "Christ," I yelled. We had been walking in silence for about a block, and it must have seemed to Manon to have come out of nowhere.

  "I'm sor--"

  "Forget it," she said. "I do it in the office all the time now. I get so worked up in my head about the fact that they won't listen, and I just become this cauldron. I let out a 'shit' the other day that startled one of the secretaries -- she kind of half fell off of her chair. But she's r
eally just a secretary in the trade mission, so why would she get it? All she's worried about is arranging the next lunch with the vineyard association from Bordeaux."

  "Lucky her," I said. "Clueless and drunk at lunch."

  When we arrived at Cafe Fessler, we walked in on what appeared to be a celebration. Gregory was popping open a bottle of champagne, and he and Henry and a couple of the fossils where grabbing glasses. Gregory saw us and shouted.

  "Alex! Manon! Come here now. It is the greatest day."

  "Liesl had the baby! A girl!" Henry shouted. And then we all hugged, together and in every combination. I even hugged a fossil and then suppressed the feeling that I really needed to wash my hands in the bathroom.

  She was a little more than two weeks early, but mother and daughter were fine. Henry had driven her to the hospital and had seen the baby, but after a quick visit, Liesl was already asleep, and the nurses told him to come back in the morning.

  "Seven pounds even," Gregory said. "A nice, big girl."

  He was starting to cry. We had been there a few minutes before I realized that I hadn't asked the baby's name.

  "Sylvie," Gregory said, and then he was bawling, just convulsed by tears, paralyzed by them. Sylvie had been his wife's name.

  After a while, Henry was well past his customary one drink and in a silly fog. He stumbled off to bed early. The fossils sat around with Gregory and told him their Pop-Pop stories. I was going to stop in the bathroom and then head home with Manon when Gregory saw where I was going and walked along with me as if heading for the kitchen that shared a hallway with the toilets.

  He reached into his pocket and handed me a folded piece of paper.

  "This came last night from London, right at midnight," he said.

  "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

  "I figured it could wait."

  "And you wrote it down?"

  "Read it. There's no danger."

  The message was as devastating as it was short:

  Information received and appreciated. Nothing here changes.

  G

  There were so many things I was feeling, so many things I wanted to say. Nothing here changes. With those three words, Groucho had expressed my helplessness and my hopelessness. Nothing here changes. The only good part was that it seemed as if he was on my side, on our side, and was as frustrated as we were. If your lot in life is to shout into the wind, I guess it was better not to be doing it alone.

  I looked down at the paper again, then tore it into little pieces. I pushed open the bathroom door and then turned back toward Gregory.

  "I'll flush this," I said. And then I hugged him -- as a thank you, and as congratulations, and because I needed to hug somebody.

  "It is the greatest day." As the words escaped from my mouth, I immediately felt guilty. I wish I had meant them.

  44

  The decision to try my luck in Paris came slowly over the next few days, and then the drip-drip-drip just spilled over the rim of the cup. No one was listening. Time was running out. I had a friend in Paris, Leon, a journalist with journalistic connections. It might have been far-fetched, but it was all I had.

  Manon's initial thought was that it was a waste of time.

  "You're better off staying here," she said. "I mean, there's no way I could go with you. And I don't know how many connections Leon might have -- you don't know, either. It's just a complete shot in the dark."

  "If you hadn't noticed, it's getting pretty fucking dark."

  She smiled. "What do you think, you're going to crash Gamelin's dinner table at Maxim's and convince him that they're coming through the Ardennes? You're going to draw it all on the tablecloth, just push the dishes away and start sketching. It's mad."

  "It's all I have." Then, after a minute, "But what about the gold? That's a story he could work on and write. Publicity might mean something there. You have to admit that."

  "I'll concede there is a chance there," Manon said. "But based on my boss, the idea that my people would lift a finger to try to stop them is a fantasy. And the Swiss are so brazen, I really don't think it will matter. I don't think it's possible to embarrass them when you're talking about the family business."

  "The family business?"

  "Making money," she said.

  "I still have to try."

  "I know." She kissed me on the head, like a mother kissing her child before sending him off to school. Then we just sat there in her flat, side by side on her couch. We fell asleep there, my arm holding her, her head on my chest.

  The next morning, I told Marta I was taking the night train to Paris. She grabbed the diary and her pen, expecting a few details for the record. I offered none. She waited.

  "It's a personal trip," I said, finally.

  "Then you'll be making your own reservations," she said.

  "Already done."

  "When will you be back?"

  This was Monday, May 6th. I would be in Paris on the 7th and 8th, and probably the 9th -- but no later. I needed to be back here on the invasion date, whatever the outcome of my adventure.

  "Back on the 10th, Friday," I said.

  "Cancel everything between now and then?"

  "I'm not sure there's anything to cancel," I said. She looked down in the diary and saw I was right. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get there but, finally, I had the upper hand in the conversation. With that, Marta marched out.

  I finished up a few things and then walked to my flat to pack a small bag. I took a quick trip to the MCMIX fountain, just to check, and there was no yellow chalk mark. Part of me thought I should contact Brodsky, to let him know I was leaving town. But he would just be even more cynical about my chances than Manon was, and I wasn't in the mood.

  The taxi to the station left me there about an hour before the train's scheduled departure. The conductors and porters would start to allow people into their compartments about 30 minutes before it was leaving time. That left me some time for a coffee, which I was about to order when a familiar voice spoke over my shoulder.

  "Two coffees, paper cups, please." It was Peter Ruchti.

  I was oddly glad to see him.

  "I can afford to pay in this place," he said. We took the coffees and walked into the massive train shed. Ruchti pointed to an empty bench, where we sat.

  "You have time for a chat," he said. I looked at my watch reflexively, even though I knew I had nearly an hour.

  "A few minutes," I said.

  "I would ask where you're going, but I'm not in the mood to be lied to."

  "Paris," I said.

  "Business or pleasure?"

  "I have a friend there."

  "That doesn't answer the question but never mind. There's something I need to tell you."

  I just looked at him, as expressionless as I could manage.

  "Who's Werner Vogl?" Ruchti asked.

  Suddenly, I don't think I was expressionless anymore.

  "That bad?" Ruchti said.

  "I don't know what you're talking about." A weak bluff.

  "If that's how you want to play it, that's okay with me. Have a nice trip." Ruchti began to stand. I reached for his arm, and he sat back down on the bench, which suddenly felt a little colder.

  "Vogl is a Gestapo captain, or at least he was," I said.

  "Still is," Ruchti said.

  "He and I have a...history."

  "So I gathered."

  "Is he here? In Zurich?"

  "No," Ruchti said. "At least, not yet."

  He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He said it was his transcription of a telegram that was received that morning in the German legation.

  "One of their quote-unquote trade representatives walked it over to my office at lunchtime. He brought the actual telegram, let me see it and copy it, asked me if I could help."

  Ruchti handed me the paper. It said:

  Please facilitate inquiries into the whereabouts of Alex Kovacs, a Czech national. Believed to be in Zurich recently. Any
and all information appreciated. Priority.

  Capt. Werner Vogl, Gestapo HQ, Al. Szucha 25, Warsaw

  Priority. Just great.

  "I played dumb," Ruchti said. "Isn't very hard for me -- and besides, those assholes think we're all either incompetents or idiots or both. But that won't stop them for long."

  "They already have me in their census book."

  "One hand doesn't know what the other is doing sometimes, even in the great Hitler machine. But they'll be coordinated fairly quickly."

  "But even if they figure it out -- when they figure it out -- I'm in Switzerland. There's nothing they can do to me, right."

  "I wonder if the kid who got the bullet through the eye on Rennweg thought nobody could do anything to him."

  "You still don't know who did it, though," I said. "Or why."

  "No, not exactly. It's not as if it was some damned lover's quarrel, though. And you and I both know that it wasn't the good guys."

  Ruchti stopped for a second. The coffee was already cold.

  "Are you in that much trouble with this guy?" he said.

  "Yeah. More than you can imagine." I thought about telling Ruchti the story, then decided against it. I just didn't have the energy. Besides, it's not as if him knowing why Vogl wanted to exact his revenge would make a difference either way in whether or not Vogl succeeded.

  "Thanks," I said, and I meant it. Ruchti might just have been worried about keeping his playing field clean, but he didn't have to seek me out to tell me about the telegram. He might even help me out in a pinch if it came to that.

  But that would happen later, if at all. Vogl was still in Warsaw, and I was getting on a train to Paris. It was an entirely alcoholic journey, as it turned out -- I even bought the last half-bottle of Hennessy from the bartender and took it back to my compartment. But if I slept, I don't remember.

  Part IV

  45

  We had spoken a few times over the telephone, but I had not seen Leon in nearly two years. So it seemed only natural when I spotted him there, sitting at a table at a sidewalk cafe, a bottle of wine already opened and poured, that the first words I would say to him would be, "A fucking beret? Seriously?"