by John Pearce
Erich told how he’d reported the death back to his boss, who was furious about it. He was angriest at Dmitri and Sonny, whom he hadn’t wanted to use at all, preferring his own Russian or German muscle, but he was also furious at Erich for leaving the room.
He told Erich that when he reported Artie’s death Sommers already knew about it from Sonny’s telephone call.
“He called the whole deal off. I didn’t hear another word about it until my boss sent me to Sarasota to snatch Roy Castor. But this time our men went with me. He wasn’t about to take the risk of Al’s amateur hour again, and told him so.”
Eddie asked, “Then tell me about my wife and son.”
“I knew it happened after, but I wasn’t involved in it, God help me. I’d never even heard of you until Al called me a couple of weeks ago. All I knew was when my boss told me he’d had a couple of noirs killed. It wasn’t nothing to me.”
Before the sentence ended, Eddie struck him violently with the back of his left hand, breaking his nose, which bled copiously through his beard and down the front of his shirt. Erich didn’t flinch or complain.
“Now tell us about Roy Castor.”
“Al called my boss and said he wanted to try again on another old geezer who’d worked with your father. He told us where to be and called when the mark was on the way. I didn’t figure he’d be strong enough to get loose, much less that he’d run straight into the car and get killed. We got out of town as soon as Sonny could take us to the airport.”
“And the next step?” Eddie asked.
“Pick up that semi-sister of mine in Paris, and you as well if we could. The idiots working for me reached for the wrong woman and got the timing all off, and they sure didn’t count on you knowing hand-to-hand like that.” He looked up with grudging admiration.
“Why did you have to stab the hotel clerk?”
“He tried to stop me. I was following my guys until that happened, but I knew the cops would be there soon so I just left the car. Some of the Frogs beat me up pretty good but I finally managed to get away before the police got there. I know they’re still looking for me, which is why I’m in this part of town. Don’t worry — I’ll be somewhere else tomorrow.”
“One more question. Who’s your boss?”
“That’s the one thing I’ll never tell you. I don’t think you’ll kill me, but he would if I told you anything that could lead back to him. I won’t tell you.”
Eddie thought for a moment, then said, “That’s all, then. Walk north up this street and we’ll go the other way. Before you leave, give me one of those 100-euro notes you got back above Le Stop.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t I’ll hogtie you with your own belt and carry you to the police myself. And if you do I’ll give you the 100 euros back. I just want one of those bills.
“Paul, can you give him the cash?”
“Sure.” Paul reached into his wallet to extract two orange 50-Euro notes and held them out to Erich, who pulled one of the 100s carefully from his pocket. Eddie kept his grip on Erich, but with his other hand reached for his own handkerchief, which he folded around the note without touching it and carefully returned to his pocket.
Then he pushed Erich away from him just strongly enough to keep him from pulling the knife in his pocket. Paul stepped aside as Erich staggered past.
“You should hope you never see me again,” Eddie told him in a level voice.
They waited until Erich was 50 yards away, then started back down Rue de Suez toward Le Stop.
“I’m going in to see the owner,” Eddie said to Paul. “You wait on the street just in case. It won’t take long.”
The bearded man in the prayer cap was sweeping the floor when they arrived. Most of the lights were off but the door opened to Eddie’s push.
“We are closed, monsieur,” the owner said.
“I have something to show you.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the handkerchief, opening it so the man could see the banknote.
“You gave this note less than an hour ago, in the room directly above us, to a man with the first name of Erich, and several last names, and he gave it to me. It has both his fingerprints and yours. In fifteen minutes it will be in the hands of the security police. That is all I wish to say to you, other than good night.” He backed away from the shocked owner, pulled open the door, and walked into the night. At the métro he bade Paul good night and picked up his iPhone to call Philippe who, he suspected, would not be pleased.
Philippe exploded. “You let him get away? What kind of idiotic thinking was that?”
“Before he got away I was able to get from him a 100-euro note with his fingerprints and the prints of the man who gave it to him, the owner of a café called Le Stop on Rue de Suez. I suspect they will lead you where you want to go. Would you like me to bring the banknote to you now? It’s pretty new, so you should be able to find the prints easily.”
“No. Take it to the préfecture. I’ll call them about it. I’m sorry he got away. I’m sure you are, too.”
“I hope you can catch him. He deserves even more than you can do to him.”
“We can do a lot to his type, but the fingerprints are all we can do tonight, I suppose. Take the note to the préfecture right away, and I’ll see you at dinner tomorrow night. Margaux will decide where we go. Check with her.”
He took the métro to Châtelet then walked the two blocks to the préfecture. At the door two uniformed policemen stood guard. He approached the older one.
“Monsieur l’agent,” he began politely. “I have just spoken to Commissioner Cabillaud and he has asked me to bring this evidence to you. He will call the appropriate officer with instructions.” He held out his handkerchief and the 100-euro note so the befuddled policeman could see it. “He has asked that I meet him immediately, so may I ask you to deliver this to the senior officer on duty tonight?”
The policeman was suspicious that Eddie could not deliver the note himself and resisted, but his younger colleague finally said, “I’ll take it in.” He held out his hand for the handkerchief, then turned and went into the building.
Eddie turned and left, relieved. He did not think Philippe would order him questioned but he didn’t want to take any chances, so he went home as quickly as he could.
Jacques had hinted strongly that the treasure might never have left the Count’s house, that the SS contact was imaginary. Even though he was an enthusiastic and well-known collaborator he would have been suspect, especially among the anti-Frank contingent in the German Army, which was strong. And the Germans were scrambling like rats trying to find a way off their sinking ship. The odds were high that he had never called the SS.
Aurélie found that the house had been sold in 1979, then almost immediately torn down and replaced with an apartment building. But the new building was built on only part of the property. The Count’s ancestors had assembled several parcels between 1770 and 1775 and added more just as the legal system was changing to the Code Napoléon. In 1865 a strip of the property was sold to the French government for installation of new tracks into Gare Saint-Lazare. As a result of all the purchases and sales, title to part of the lot was no longer clear. An additional disadvantage was that the grand townhouse overlooked the deep trench housing the railroad tracks.
The buyer decided to build the new apartment building on the part to which he had unquestioned title, which happened to coincide with the cellar, so he built the building over the existing two-story basement, reducing his construction costs substantially. The upper level he subdivided into storage for his tenants, the second he held in reserve. He had planned to build a restaurant on the other part of his land as soon as he received clear title, but by the time that happened France was deep in the recession of the 1980s and there was no appetite for financing a restaurant. Before the recession ended he died and his widow rented the lot to a restaurant across the street, which paved it for parking.
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br /> “And you got all this information where?” Eddie asked as he carried two espressos from the kitchen into his study, where they had spread their papers on the desk. They had just finished their lunch of fritto misto, small fried fish, with a cucumber salad and a glass each of Pinot Noir.
“From city hall. An old friend of Philippe’s works in the office that issues building permits. Actually, I guess he runs it. His name is Jerôme Fontainbleu. I called him before class this morning, and by the time the class was over he had found the old construction plans from 1980 and described them to me. To get a building permit you have to write an essay about what you’re doing and why, so that’s the most likely source of the background. Plus the fact that he was a young inspector at the time and saw the building go up.”
“Damn, you’re good,” he said in admiration.
Eddie had spent the morning at his language school reviewing the last month’s results with his accountant. Aurélie taught a long seminar on Louis XIV. They had agreed they would meet at his apartment at 1 p.m. to organize their findings and decide what action they would request of Philippe at dinner that night. Eddie would bring in lunch.
“Good job picking out lunch, by the way,” Aurélie said. “A lot of the stuff the Italian carryout places sell is too heavy.”
With a smile, he reached out to touch the back of her hand softly. “Where do you think this leaves us?”
“Hard to say, but I told Jerôme what we’re looking for and he’d put money on the lower level of that cellar. He never knew the old Count or the daughter but he thinks the same thing Jacques seemed to believe, that the Count would keep the treasure under his own control. And then he was arrested and died just a few months after he was released from prison. He may not have told anyone what he had. What good would it be to the Fourth Reich if the new Hitler didn’t know about it, whoever he turned out to be?”
“Maybe it wasn’t for the Fourth Reich after all. Maybe it was Hans Frank’s own golden parachute. When he got away from the Russians he must have thought he was home free. I know from my father’s interview notes that his death sentence was a big shock to him.”
“Any of that could be true,” Aurélie said. “Maybe he figured Eric Kraft was enough. After all, he was the son of his own sister. Things get very confused in wartime, loyalties get switched around or forgotten. We may be searching for an answer that doesn’t exist. In any case, we probably need to look at that cellar. The question is, do we go there on our own and try to talk our way in, or do it with the backing of the French police?”
“In this case I think we need to get the police involved. I’ve pissed off Philippe more than enough for one day.” He explained his and Paul’s meeting with Erich the night before.
“So you just let him go?”
“Well, I got his fingerprints and the identity of his contact. I suspect they’re both already in custody by now, if one of them hasn’t taken things into his own hands.”
“You mean … “
“Let’s just see what happens.”
She turned away from him for a moment. “Then you think we should bring this up with Philippe tonight?”
“That’s certainly one approach. How does it strike you?”
“Good. It’s the right way.”
“Then let’s do it that way.”
Eddie and Aurélie walked arm in arm from Rue Saint-Roch across the river to Les Ministères, a favorite. “I seem to spend a lot of time walking down this street,” he said.
“Is this how you used to come to meet me at The Sorbonne?” she asked.
“Almost every time. It’s one of my favorite walks.”
“Maybe we can start that up again.”
At precisely nine o’clock he pushed open the door and waited for her to enter. The waiter recognized both of them and was surprised and pleased to see them together. He led them immediately to a banquette off to one side, where Margaux and Paul were already seated, a bottle of champagne open between them.
Eddie stooped to buss his mother, followed by Aurélie. Margaux noticed immediately that she was wearing almost no makeup and jumped to the conclusion that she and Eddie were a couple again. “Bon!” she said softly, just to Aurélie.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Margaux said to the group. “Philippe said he’d have to be about a half-hour late because something came up. Aurélie, he said he tried to call to tell you.”
“Sorry. I’ve had the phone turned off while Édouard and I went over all the things we need to discuss with Philippe.” She reached into her purse to turn it back on and glanced guiltily at Eddie.
Margaux had told the waiter Philippe would be late so he brought small plates of cheese pastries for them to snack on. The bottle of champagne quickly disappeared, and by the time the second was half finished Philippe sat down next to Margaux and immediately began talking.
“I hate to be late like this, especially for a table of beautiful women, but I thought you’d want to know what’s happened. Eddie, you will be especially interested.” Eddie looked at Aurélie and raised his eyebrows in interrogation but she shrugged to say she had no more information than he.
“Everyone, last night Eddie and Paul…” He looked meaningfully toward Paul, who didn’t blink. “Eddie and Paul had a chance to talk to Erich Kraft. Erich got away, but they were alert enough to get his fingerprints on a 100-euro note as well as the fingerprints of the owner of a little restaurant in the 18th who gave it to him.
“Eddie took the note to the préfecture last night and I had them analyze the fingerprints immediately. Erich was indeed who we thought he was, but the restaurant owner turned out to be a terrorist named Hamid we’ve been looking for since the 90s. He’d been hiding in plain sight. To the public he was an upstanding citizen running a small business and keeping his nose clean.
“Except that he wasn’t. We don’t know yet who he was fronting for, but he was running some of Erich’s activities on behalf of a third party. Not very often, but he did pay out a thousand euros last night.
“But that’s all just a sidebar to the story. As soon as we identified his fingerprints we put watchers on his café, since he lives in an apartment above it. We used the hotel across the street — was that the one you used?” Eddie shrugged noncommittally. “We also tapped his phone.”
“Early this morning he made a phone call to an anonymous cell number, which connected somewhere in the Gulf states — we’ll know more about that tomorrow. A few hours later he received a call back from the same number, then he called a cell number, owner also unknown, and after that he left the café. He took the Line 4 and the tram all the way across town to Parc Montsouris. It’s green and beautiful this time of year — Aurélie and her mother and I used to picnic there long ago — but he was all business. No waiting around, no admiring the scenery or the girls, no looking for a tail. He went straight to the old railroad track that runs across the park.
He turned to Paul. “I think everyone here knows about it, but just in case, there used to be a circle line around most of Paris called the petite ceinture, or little belt, much of it in a cut well below surface level. It couldn’t run entirely in tunnels because it used steam engines, but it was deep enough not to be much of a bother to the residents around it. Its route was a short distance inside the path of the modern beltway.”
Aurélie interrupted. “Aren’t there openings to the Catacombs in the tunnels of the petite ceinture in the 14th?”
“There are,” Philippe replied. “But they don’t make for easy access and our man is my age, so he’d have a hard time getting through them. Nevertheless we had the Cataflics on alert.
“Hamid found an access ladder where the security fence had already been breached. It’s very overgrown along the track and it was too early for picnickers, so he had cover. He climbed down the ladder to the track level, then disappeared into the tunnel. We couldn’t follow him down because there’s nowhere in there to hide.
“We heard a loud scream, which en
ded suddenly, and after a few minutes he came walking back down the tracks. We waited until he’d got back to the surface and arrested him. At that moment we weren’t quite sure what the charges would be, although he did have a lot of blood on him. Then some of us went back down the ladder.”
Margaux smiled and said, “Must have been quite a climb for such an old man.”
“You do what you have to do,” he said, returning the smile.
“We walked down the tracks into the tunnel and about thirty yards in we found a body. Not an ordinary body, mind you. A body in two parts, a decapitated body. The head was on one side of the tracks, the torso on the other. There were no other injuries, so the victim must have been alive when his throat was cut.”
“How awful,” Aurélie said, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Awful for him, but there’s more.
“Both ears and all the fingers had been cut off. Hamid obviously hadn’t thought far enough ahead, because we found them in his pockets. I was late because I was waiting for the report from the fingerprint department. The head and the body belonged to Eric Kraft. There’s no doubt about it.”
Everyone at the table sat silently while the news sank in, then Philippe broke the silence.
“Eddie, is this the way you thought it would work out?”
“I’m not unhappy about it. It’s no less than he deserved.”
Dinner arrived and they turned their attention unenthusiastically to the lamb chops Margaux had ordered for everyone. In twenty minutes they began to share a plate of cheese and Philippe picked up the story again.
