Spies of the Balkans

by Alan Furst

  But Jones waved him back down and said, “A week or so after he landed.”

  “And how did, um, we come to hear about it?”

  “Whoever these people are, they were in contact with an underground cell operating a clandestine radio.”

  “Back to London.”

  “Back to the French in London.”

  “Oh.”

  “Quite.”

  “You don’t suppose the Germans are in control of them, do you? Waiting to see who shows up?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  Silence. Wilkins had now assumed the same posture, drink in hand, legs crossed, as his colleague. They were, Escovil thought, rather good at waiting. Finally he said, “So you’ll want me to go up there.”

  Jones cackled. “Are you daft? Of course not, you’ll send your agent, what’s-his-name, the policeman.”

  “Constantine Zannis? He’s not my agent. Who told you that?”

  Wilkins leaned forward and said, “Oh damn-it-all of course he is.” He glanced at his watch. “Has been for a while—ten minutes, I’d say, more or less.”

  I’d like to be in the room when you tell Zannis that. But Escovil knew there was no point in starting an argument he couldn’t win. “Paris is a long way from here. Why wouldn’t you take Byer out by fishing boat, from the French coast?”

  “Option closed,” Jones said. “For the time being. Somebody got himself caught up there and the Germans shut it down. We’ll get it back, in time, but right now you’ll have to use your escape line.”

  “It isn’t mine.”

  “Now it is.”

  Oh piss off. “And why does Zannis have to go?”

  “Because Byer will never make it by himself, speaks not a word of any continental language. He can read a scientific journal in German, but he can’t order lunch. And, more important, if he’s caught, we have to be able to show we did everything we could. We have to show we care.”

  Escovil suppressed a sigh. “Very well, I’ll ask him.”

  “No,” Wilkins said, now quite irritated, “you’ll tell him. ‘Ask him’ indeed.”

  Jones said, “Do it any way you like, but keep in mind, Francis, we don’t take no for an answer.” He stood, collected Wilkins’s glass, then Escovil’s, and poured fresh drinks. When he’d resettled himself, he said, “Now,” in a tone of voice that was new to Escovil, and went on to explain how they thought the thing might actually be done. Bastards they were, to the very bone, Escovil thought, but at least, and thank heaven, smart bastards.

  27 January. A telephone call from Escovil, early that afternoon. Could they meet? Privately? Zannis’s instinctive reaction was to refuse, courteously or not so courteously, because the word “privately” told the tale: the spies wanted something. And it wasn’t such a good day to ask Zannis anything, because he was miserable. He had waited for a call from Demetria, waited and waited, but it hadn’t come. Five long days had crept by, his heart soaring every time the telephone rang: It’s her! But it never was. Now, he would either have to assume she’d thought better of the whole thing, or was waiting for him—as he’d promised, very nearly threatened—to call her. Meanwhile, the spies were after him. Back in the autumn, in his time with Roxanne, he would have laughed. But the world had changed, the war was coming south, and only the British alliance might save the country.

  And didn’t they know it.

  “It’s really rather important,” Escovil said. “Is there somewhere …?”

  Skata. “You can come to the office after six,” Zannis said, a sharp edge to his voice. “Do you know where it is?”

  “I don’t.”

  Oh yes you do. Zannis gave him directions, then said, “It’s very private here, once everyone’s gone home, you needn’t be concerned.” And the hell with your damn bookstores and empty churches.

  And so, at five minutes past six, there he was. “Hello.”

  He’d been drinking, Zannis could smell it on him. And there were shadows beneath his eyes, which made him seem, with his sand-colored hair swept across his forehead, more than ever a boy grown old. Beneath a soiled raincoat, the battered tweed jacket.

  Once he was seated on the other side of the desk, Zannis said, “So then, what do you want?”

  Such directness caused Escovil to clear his throat. “We must ask a favor of you.”

  We. Well, now that was out of the way, what next? Not that he wanted to hear it.

  “It has to do with your ability to bring refugees, bring them secretly, from northern Europe to Salonika.”

  “You know about this?”

  “We do.” Escovil’s tone was apologetic—the secret service was what it was and sometimes, regretfully, it worked.

  “And so?”

  “We need to make use of it, for a fugitive of our own. An important fugitive—that is, important to the British war effort.”

  Zannis lit a cigarette. That done, he said, “No.” Lighting the cigarette had given him an opportunity to amend his first answer, which had been, Get out of my office.

  Escovil looked sorrowful. “Of course. That’s the proper response, for you. It’s what I would say, in your place.”

  Then good-bye.

  “You fear,” Escovil went on, “that it might jeopardize your operation and the people who run it.”

  “It could very well destroy it, Escovil. Then what becomes of the men and women trying to get out of Germany? I’ll tell you what: they’re trapped, they’re arrested, and then they are at the mercy of the SS. Want more?”

  “No need,” Escovil said, very quietly. “I know.” He was silent for a time, then he said, “Which might still happen, even if you refuse to help us.”

  “Which will happen.”

  “Then …”

  “It’s a question of time. The longer we go on, the more lives saved. And if some of our fugitives are caught, we can try to fix the problem, and we can continue. People run away all the time, and the organization designed to catch them adjusts, gets what information it can, and goes to work the next day. But if they discover an important fugitive, perhaps a secret agent, it suggests the existence of others, and then the organization starts to multiply—more money, more men, more pressure from above. And that’s the end of us.”

  “He’s not a secret agent.”

  “No?”

  “No. He’s a downed airman. Who, it turns out, is a scientist, and shouldn’t have been allowed to join the RAF, and certainly shouldn’t have been allowed to fly bomber missions. But he escaped the attention of the department which—umm, attends to such individuals. And now they want him back.”

  “And you can’t get him back on your own? You?”

  “I don’t like saying this, but that’s what we’re doing.”

  “And I don’t like saying this, but you’re endangering many lives.”

  “Well, frankly,” Escovil said, “we do nothing else. We don’t want to, we’d rather not, but it seems to work out that way.”

  Zannis thought for a time. “You have no alternative?”

  “Not today.”

  “I’ll tell you something, Escovil, if I find out you’re lying to me you’ll be on the next boat out of here.”

  “I take your point, but that won’t happen. Don’t you see? It’s gone beyond that now. The war, everything.” He paused, then said, “And I’m not lying.”

  “Oh, well, in that case …”

  “I’m not. And you can assure yourself that the individual is precisely who I say he is.”

  “Really? And how exactly would I do that?”

  “Ask him.”

  Zannis didn’t go directly home. He stopped at the neighborhood taverna, had an ouzo, then another, and considered a third but, nagged by guilt over putting off Melissa’s dinner, hurried back to Santaroza Lane. Then too, the third ouzo wouldn’t, he realized, have much more effect than the first two, which had had no effect whatsoever. His mind was too engaged, too embroiled, to be soothed by alcohol. It lifted briefly, then w
ent back to work. Sorry!

  He simply could not persuade himself that Escovil was lying. Years of police work had sharpened his instincts in this area, and he trusted them more than ever. After Escovil’s little surprise—“Ask him”—he’d gone on to explain the proposed operation, which was artfully conceived and made sense. Made the most perfect sense, as long as Zannis was willing to accept a certain level of danger. And who—given the time and circumstance—wouldn’t? Not him. He had to go to Paris. He had to go to Paris. And do what had to be done. And that was that.

  Lying on the bed in his underwear, he reached toward the night table and had a look, yet again, at the photograph he’d been given. Yes, Byer was exactly who Escovil had said he was, bruises and all. And how had Escovil’s organization managed to get the photograph out of France? Escovil had claimed not to know and, as before, Zannis believed him. Next he studied the second photograph of Byer, the one in the Sardakis passport, a real passport photo, it seemed, and a real Greek passport. Perhaps for them not so difficult but, even so, impressive. So, was this a man who would murder his wife and her lover in a fit of jealousy? Well, it surely was—the owlish, seemingly harmless intellectual. Skata! He’d seen such murderers, that was exactly what they looked like!

  He returned the passport and the photograph to the night table and turned his mind toward what he had to do in the morning. The gun. Why had he not replaced his Walther, lost in the Trikkala bombing? Why was he so …

  The telephone. Who would call him here, his mother? She had no telephone, but, in an emergency … “Hello?”

  “Hello, it’s me.”

  Her! “Demetria. Did … did I give you this number?”

  “Are you angry with me?”

  “Good God no!”

  “Vasilou had it, in a card index in his study.”

  “Is everything … all right?”

  “Better now. But it’s been a terrible week, Vasilou is suddenly affectionate, back early from the office, wanting, you know. But poor Demetria has eaten a bad fish. He is enraged, shouting. He will buy the restaurant and fire the cook! Meanwhile, I hide in the bathroom.” A memory of that moment drew from her a kind of amused snort. “Anyhow, at last I’m free to telephone. It is the servants’ night out but they dawdled before they left and I realized you wouldn’t be at work.”

  “Can you come here now? Even for a little while? Just to see you….”

  “Oh Costa I can’t.” But with her voice she let him know how much she wanted to, and, almost better, she had never said his name before and hearing it thrilled him.

  “Tomorrow?”

  “The day after. He is off to Athens, the maids are going to a christening, and I told everyone I was invited to a mah-jong party. So I can see you at five, and we will have two hours, unless …”

  “Unless what?”

  “I must warn you, Costa, he is a dangerous enemy, a very dangerous enemy. Some of the people who work for him, they will do … anything.”

  He wondered why she thought Vasilou would discover them so quickly, then he knew. “Demetria, do you want to tell him? Now? Leave him and stay with me?”

  The line whispered. Finally she said, “Not now. Not yet.”

  She was, he thought, testing him. I know you will lie in bed by me, but will you stand by me? “I am not afraid of him, Demetria.”

  “You are not afraid of anybody, are you.”

  “No. And the day, the hour, you want to leave, it’s done.” When she didn’t speak he said, “Do you still love him?”

  “No, I never did, not really. I thought I might, at one time, yes, I suppose I did think that.” After a moment, she continued. “I am, you know, his third wife—he simply wanted something different, a new possession, but even so, I hoped. He was forceful, masculine, rich—who was I to refuse him as a husband? And I had been married—and all that that means in this country—so I was grateful, and he was honorable; he went to my father and asked for my hand. Very old-fashioned, very traditional, and it affected me. I was alone, and getting older, and here was, at least, a luxurious life.”

  “That can happen, I think, to anyone.”

  “Yes, I guess it might. And I am ‘anyone,’ Costa, inside … all this.”

  “I’m afraid you’re not just ‘anyone,’ not to me.”

  “I know. I saw that. From the car when you and Vasilou came out of the club.” She hesitated, then sighed. “I want to tell you everything, but not on the telephone.” A pause, then, “You haven’t told me where you live.”

  “There are no numbers on Santaroza Lane, but it’s the fourth house up from the corner toward the bay, the door is old wood, unpainted. I have the second floor.”

  She waited, said, “So,” then, “I have to go now. But it’s only two days. One day, and part of another.”

  “At five,” he said.

  “Yes, at five,” she said, her voice lovely, and hung up the phone.

  Salonika’s best gun shop was at the western end of the Via Egnatia, in what had been, before the Great Fire, the city’s Jewish district. The owner, called Moises, the Sephardic version of the name, had been there forever, more than thirty years. Still, his sidelocks were not quite gray. He always wore a black Homburg, a formal hat, with a vest and a colorful tie, his shirtsleeves buttoned decorously at the wrists. The shop smelled of gun oil, not far from bananas. Policemen had always received a discount from Moises, so Zannis showed his badge.

  Moises said, “You are Costa Zannis, no?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need a Walther, the PPK detective’s model, and a holster. Also a box of ammunition.”

  Grimly, Moises shook his head. “I thought maybe you wanted something repaired.”

  “No, a new sidearm.”

  “Ach, forgive me, but I haven’t got one.”

  “Well then, used. Maybe even better.”

  “All gone, I’m afraid. New, used, everything.”

  “What do you mean, all gone?”

  “I’m down to practically nothing—everything’s been bought up: hunting rifles, shotguns, all the handguns.” He shrugged. “I wish I could help you. I write the Walther company, they say next month.”

  Zannis thought it over. “Moises, I have to ask you, as a special favor to me, to try and buy one back. I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

  Moises scratched the back of his head and looked doubtful. “I don’t know, I’ve never done such a thing. Once the customer buys, it’s his, that’s that.”

  “Of course. But, this time, I must have one. A PPK.”

  “Well, I had one customer who bought twenty model PPKs, I suppose he might make do with nineteen. I wonder, maybe it’s better if you ask him yourself.”

  “Would he mind, that you gave me his name?”

  Moises considered it. “Not you. Anybody in this city can tell you anything. And, come to think of it, I’d imagine you’re acquainted with him.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Elias, the man with one name. You know, the poet.”

  “Twenty handguns?”

  “Not so strange. Who can see into the future?”

  “Maybe Elias can. I’ll get in touch with him.”

  “Tell him, tell him I was reluctant, to give you his name.”

  “He won’t care.”

  “Poets buying Walthers,” Moises said. “I don’t remember anything like that, and I’ve been here forever.”

  Zannis walked back to the office. Fucking war, he thought. Salonika was preparing for resistance, people buying weapons and hiding them. But Elias, one step ahead of the game, meant to go—bearing gifts—up into the mountain villages where, once the Germans came, the bandits would once again become andartes, guerrilla fighters, as they had during the Turkish occupation.

  Zannis telephoned, then met with Elias at a kafeneion an hour later. He’d come away from the gun shop with a belt holster and ammunition, now, ceremoniously, Elias handed over a box containin
g a Walther. When Zannis reached into his pocket, Elias held up a hand. “Not a drachma shall I take from you, Officer Costa. This is my pleasure. My gift, my gesture. For it’s my job, as a Greek poet, to be oracular, to see into the future, so I know what this weapon will do, and to who. As I said, my pleasure.”

  29 January. An excited Costa Zannis left his office at three to pick up the sheets he’d taken to be washed “and ironed, Elena.” Then, once back at the apartment, he made the bed and started to sweep the floor, but stopped, realizing that this chore had to be preceded by another, and began to brush Melissa. Probably she liked food more than a brushing, but it was surely a close second. She rolled over on her side, paws out, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth, so Zannis could brush her chest. “Yes, Melissa, we are going to have a guest. An important guest.” Melissa’s tail gave a single thump against the floor.

  He was humming some song, the words forgotten, when there was a sharp knock at the door. Zannis looked at his watch. She’s early! It was not much after four but, who cared; they would have more time together. He opened the door and there stood a detective—Tellos? Yes, he thought so, a few years earlier they’d served in the same squad. What the hell was he doing here?

  “Come in,” Zannis said.

  “Vangelis sent me to find you,” Tellos said, apologetically. “I went to the office, but you weren’t there. I have a car downstairs.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You haven’t heard?”

  “No.”

  “General Metaxas has died. In a hospital in Athens.”

  “Assassinated?”

  “No, though people are saying all sorts of things—poisoned by the Italians, you name it, conspiracies of every sort.”

  “But not true.”

  “No. Vangelis talked to people in Athens. The general had a tonsillectomy and died of toxemia. Anyhow, we may have to deal with demonstrations, riots, who knows what, so there’s a meeting at the mayor’s house, east of the port, and Commissioner Vangelis wants you there.”