The Predators

by Harold Robbins

  “Since the war is over,” I said, “what will happen with the clubs?”

  He laughed. “The clubs will do all right. Maybe they will not make as much money, since the American soldiers will be leaving, but Paris is a city that all the world comes to for entertainment and excitement.”

  “I’m beginning to wonder if I did the right thing. I still am uncertain about what I will be doing here,” I said.

  “Relax,” he said. “You have celebrating to do now. Later we will worry about what you can do.” He turned and looked at what was happening in the club. The pandemonium was deafening. He turned back to me. “I’m going to cancel the shows for tonight. There’s enough going on here. I’ll send the girls home. I don’t want any of them to be raped here.”

  It was eleven o’clock when Giselle and I walked home. The streets were crowded with people happy with victory. Even with Giselle holding my arm, the American uniform was like a magnet. People would stop me and kiss me on both cheeks, shouting wonderful things about the Americans.

  We finally made our way into the apartment. I was out of breath even before we started climbing the stairs to the apartment. “I felt like everybody was so happy and excited, they were ready to devour me.”

  She smiled as she unlocked the door. “They are happy because this is the first time they feel safe. The war has destroyed all of our confidence in ourselves.”

  “It’s over now,” I said as we walked into the apartment. “Now we will begin to forget it.”

  “We will never forget,” she said. She dropped her coat on a chair. She turned and placed her hands on my face. “I love you,” she said. “I was not afraid before because you were here with me. Now, I am afraid.”

  I looked into her eyes; they were deep blue with a hint of tears. “Why now, Giselle? We are staying together.”

  “For how long?” she whispered. “Sooner or later, you’ll have to go home and I will be left alone. Like my sister was when her lover left her.”

  “I am staying here, you know that. My discharge papers have already been approved. When my work is over at the garage I’m out of the army and free,” I said, and held her close to me. “If I do go back to the States, you will come with me.”

  She looked up at me. “Do you really mean that? Not just because I am upset now?”

  I kissed her gently. “I promise.”

  We went into the bedroom. I had undressed before she did, so I brought the radio into the bedroom and put it on the night table. I turned on the Voice of America program. It was mid-afternoon in New York and the announcer was broadcasting from Times Square.

  I could hardly hear his voice over the noise of the crowds in the square. It was the first time I had heard the words in English. “The war in Europe is over. It’s VE day!” Then they cut to Kate Smith singing “God Bless America.” Then I began to cry. I couldn’t believe it. The world had turned upside down, again.

  My eyes were still blurry from the tears as she came into the bedroom and stood at the door, saluting. She was completely naked. And I don’t know how she did it, but she had taped a paper American flag just above her pussy, and held a bottle of champagne and two glasses in her other hand.

  21

  It was two weeks later when the discharge papers came down. Not only for me, but for the whole platoon. Sergeant Felder came to me. He held his transfer orders in his hand. “I thought they told you we would have time to get rid of the jeeps.”

  “So did I,” I said. “But they fucked me. That’s the way of the army.”

  “We’ve got seven cars left,” he insisted. “We’re losing a lot of money.”

  “You’re going home,” I said. “Don’t complain about it. At least you’re not going to the Pacific.”

  “I heard that they’re sending another officer over here to make sure everything is wrapped up correctly,” he said.

  “Felder, don’t be a pain in the ass,” I said. “It’s over. You got pretty good money for it. Now take it home and maybe you can settle down with your wife and kids. You have enough to open an automobile repair place if you want. And I’m sure your wife will be happy to have you home again.”

  “I don’t know how happy she’s going to be. I still have the clap,” he said.

  “Christ!” I said. “You have had that for six months. Didn’t you take care of it?”

  “I seen a doctor three times. Each time he said I was cured. But I wasn’t.” He looked back at me dejectedly.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Everybody else got over it in just a little time.”

  He looked at me. “I was a schmuck,” he said. “I was hot for this girl and I always went back to her.”

  “Schmuck is right.” I laughed. “At least now you can get over it. Don’t go see this girl anymore. Let the doctor straighten you out before you get discharged and go home.”

  He sat shaking his head. “How could I have been so stupid?”

  “It takes practice.” I laughed. “There’s just one thing I want before you leave. I want to get a car fixed up for me. And I want it finished in three days and then I’ll take off. I want it to be like brand-new. You do that and I’ll sign your discharge papers with a commendation.”

  * * *

  Felder had the car finished ahead of schedule. It took him only two days. That night I took the jeep into one of Paul’s hidden garages. It was just in time. That morning we moved the other jeeps that could be saved into another garage that was owned by a Corsican friend of Paul’s.

  Late that same afternoon the door of my garage office opened and a second lieutenant stood in front of me. “Sergeant Cooper?” he questioned.

  I stood up and saluted. “Yes, sir.”

  “Lieutenant Johnson.” He returned the salute. “I’ve been ordered down here to move the squad back to headquarters.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “We’ve been expecting you, sir.”

  “You have nine men?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Are they ready to move out this afternoon?” he asked.

  “They are all in their quarters, sir,” I answered.

  “I have a bus ready to take them to headquarters,” he said. He looked around the garage and junkyard as we walked back to the squad’s quarters. “You have a hell of a lot of junk jeeps here. Weren’t any of them able to be repaired?”

  “We have destruction orders for each of them, sir,” I said. “We used them for parts to repair the cars that we were fixing.”

  “Didn’t any of these get sold to junk dealers?” he asked.

  “That’s not my responsibility, sir,” I said. “Any orders like that have to come from headquarters.”

  “Strange,” he said. “I should think that they would have taken care of that.”

  I was silent.

  “I saw from the orders that you’re being discharged here in France,” he said. “Is there any reason you didn’t want to go home?”

  “My parents are gone, sir,” I said. “And I have no other family to go home to.”

  “You have a girl?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  He nodded. “I thought so, Sergeant. That’s the reason most of the soldiers who want to stay here do.”

  I didn’t answer. I looked at him. He seemed a young man, no older that I. “Have you been here long, sir?” I asked.

  “Not really, Sergeant,” he answered. “I was just transferred here directly from West Point three weeks ago.”

  Again I was silent.

  He looked at me. “You know, Sergeant. I’m jealous of you. I didn’t get to see anything of the war like you did. You must have seen many things. I wanted them to transfer me to the Pacific, but they wanted me here.”

  “There’s an important job to do here, sir,” I said. Schmuck, I thought. He missed nothing except getting killed.

  “From here I’m being transferred to Berlin,” he said. “That should be interesting. I’ve seen all those movies with M
arlene Dietrich. The German girls have to be great.”

  By this time we were at the barracks door. I opened and called out in an official sergeant voice, “Attention!”

  22

  It was not until the end of June that I finished the work on the jeeps that I had hidden in Paul’s friend’s garage. Without Felder and some of the other men, I had to find a few French mechanics who could work for me. Paul knew them all. They were older men whom the French had not drafted into the army. But there was one good thing about them. They knew their work and I found out that they had spent their lives working on automobiles. They were like artists.

  There were times during the day that I couldn’t explain to them what I needed them to do because of the language. My French was pitiful and they didn’t understand a word of English. Finally Giselle came to the garage with me for a few hours each day and translated what I needed. With her help we managed to finish.

  Then I had to pay them for their work. That took nine thousand dollars of my savings, which left me with seventeen grand. But it was worth it. The cars looked better than the day they were delivered new. Now, although the war was over and the French automobile companies were in production, it would be some time before they had cars to deliver. But a lot of our customers were willing to wait for their French autos.

  Fortunately, Paul was on my side. There were still enough hustlers who would buy the jeeps. But the money was not as good as before. On July 25 I sold the last jeep. I wound up with twenty thousand of my own and a really perfect jeep, with an all-canvas top and Plexiglas clear windows on the side.

  That summer in Paris was hell. It was hot and humid. But everybody was glad to go back to work. And as soon as everybody was back to work in a normal routine, then came vacation time. I never knew that in France vacation time was like religion. Everyone in Paris leaves town. When I would walk around I would see more American uniforms and Englishmen than French.

  I sat at the table in the club with Paul. “What goes on with this? It doesn’t make sense. Doesn’t anyone want to get back to normal and stay normal?”

  He laughed. “This is normal. Even during the war the French took their vacations.”

  The fat man who covered the stage door and acted as bouncer came over to Paul and started speaking excitedly. “The radio in your office!” he exclaimed.

  Paul gestured for me to follow him. We walked into the office. The announcer was also speaking excitedly. He spoke so fast that I couldn’t understand a word that he was saying.

  After a moment, Paul turned to me. He was so excited that he scrambled his English with his French. From what I could understand, it was something about the Americans having dropped an atomic bomb in Japan, and that thousands of people had been killed.

  He looked at me. I had never seen an expression of shock like his. “That’s terrible. So many people dead. Just innocent people who had nothing to do with the war. What is this kind of bomb that could do such horrible things?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I never heard of anything like that before. Turn to the Voice of America; maybe they will tell us.”

  He spun the dial quickly and picked up BBC. The British newscaster was as frantic as the others. “The Americans dropped an atomic bomb over Hiroshima in Japan. President Harry S. Truman while speaking to the American Congress said that this bomb will end the war in the Pacific and save many of the Americans who have had to fight from island to island to reach Japan.”

  Paul turned off the radio before I could hear any more. “An atomic bomb? What kind of bomb is that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But if it stops the war, I guess it is a good thing.”

  “Politics!” he spat out. “The Socialists are trying to push de Gaulle out of power now that the war is over and they have no more use for him. The British kicked Churchill out the minute the war was over. French Socialists, the British Labor are all Communists. In the end, Russia will control all of Europe.”

  Later that night when Giselle and I were at home, I talked to her about what Paul had said and thought, and whether all the French felt like that.

  She smiled. “I don’t think so. Paul is a Corsican and very excitable and emotional. After all, it’s on the other side of the world. It can’t bother us here.”

  I took a beer and sat down at the table until she came out from the bathroom. She laughed. “Why don’t you come to bed. The war is really over now.”

  23

  It was the middle of August, two-thirty in the morning, and Giselle and I were sleeping when Paul woke us up. This was the first time I had ever seen him nervous. He slumped into a chair at the kitchen table. I quickly gave him a cognac while Giselle made coffee.

  He drained his glass in one big swig and filled his glass again. He looked at us. “We’re in trouble,” he said.

  “Tell me why?” I asked.

  “The army found the jeeps in Corsica. They tracked them to our friends. Now the general and the inspector in the Sûreté are under house arrest. Our friends won’t talk, but the French army police are not stupid. They are already aware that that number of jeeps could only have come out of Paris.” He finished his cognac and took a sip of his coffee.

  “What are you so upset about?” I asked. “You’re not in the army. They can’t touch you.”

  “I’m Corsican,” he said. “They know that the police inspector is my brother. And they also know that we have been in touch with your commanding officer, who was in charge of jeep repairs.”

  “He’s in the fucking States,” I said. “There’s no way they can reach him. And the whole platoon has returned to the States. They’ve got nothing to grab.”

  “Jerry,” he said. “Don’t be a fool. We are still here and they can grab us.”

  “They don’t have any evidence, there’s nothing to find. All the cars are gone and I’m an American citizen. They can’t hold me for anything.”

  “You still have your own jeep,” he said. “Don’t forget, French and American law are very different. They can hold you without having a reason.” He reached for a cigarette. “My advice to you is to get out of Paris as quickly as you can. I’m on the way to Corsica in the morning.”

  “You’re just leaving the clubs”—I snapped my fingers—“just like that!”

  For the first time since he had walked in the door he laughed. “I’m Corsican. That means I’m not stupid. I have my own people to run them until I return.”

  I took a cup of coffee and sat down next to Giselle. “Where am I supposed to go? I’m American and I stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “You get into civilian clothes and you’ll look like everyone else.” He turned to Giselle. “The two of you had better begin packing. I think you should go to Lyons and see your parents. You will give them my affection and tell them I hope to see them soon.” He took out an envelope from his breast pocket and gave it to her. “This note will introduce you to the manager of the club that I own in Nice and he will put you to work immediately.”

  He then turned to me. “I am also giving another note to you. You will give it to a close friend of mine who also knows Giselle. He is Monsieur Jean Pierre Martin, a former colonel on de Gaulle’s staff. He is a homosexual as I am, but we became very good friends because I helped him with some problems with the American that he lives with now in the south of France. He is from a very rich French social family and they own Plescassier, one of the two biggest bottled-water companies in France. He likes Americans because he went to school in the States as a boy and a young man. You talk to him. There is a good chance that he will find you a position in his company. He is planning to expand his company to England and the United States.”

  “Paul,” I said. “This is wonderful of you to do this for me. And I am very grateful, but why me?”

  “You have done for my brother and me more than you realize. Besides, we are friends. And being a good friend is sometimes worth more than being a lover.” He put down his cigarette and finished
his coffee. He stood up and embraced Giselle. He kissed her on both cheeks and then turned to me. “You should be lucky that I am gay or you would never have found this girl.”

  I laughed. “Paul, please, you have to take care of yourself.”

  “I will, my friend.” He embraced me and kissed me on each cheek. “I have to go now.” He went to the door and turned to Giselle. “When you leave the apartment, leave the keys with the concierge, who will know how to take care of everything.”

  We watched him leave as he closed the door. Then I looked at Giselle. “Will he be okay?” I asked.

  She took my hand. “He will be safe,” she said. “Now we better start packing. Let’s try to have everything packed and in the car before daylight. That way no one will see us leaving.”

  “How much time will it take for us to drive to Lyons?” I asked.

  “It depends on how bad the roads are from the war. Maybe between seven and ten hours.” She laughed. “It will not be a honeymoon trip.”

  24

  I don’t know how we did it, but we did! We were packed and on the road a little after 6:00 A.M. The faint gray light was just beginning to creep up from the east. It was humid and cloudy as we drove out of Paris. The jeep drove smoothly, the engine hummed along easily, and there was no problem. But I had a problem. No road map. Giselle said she knew the way home. It was not easy driving for me. All the road signs were in kilometers and my jeep had an American mileage speedometer dial. But Giselle was not worried. She was happy. She was going home. What was the difference if it was 400 kilometers or 240 miles? It was all the same distance, she said.

  I figured that at an average of thirty miles an hour, it would take us about eight hours to get to Lyons if we didn’t have to make any stops. But there were stops. Lots of them. Pee stops, lunch stops, gasoline stops, detour stops. And the most important stop of all for Giselle. We had to stop in a city so that I could buy a civilian suit.

  She explained to me that her parents were “antiforeigners.” Especially soldiers. Ever since the German soldier had left her sister pregnant and outcast. Therese had to have an abortion and her parents never forgave Therese or her lover.