Spies of the Balkans: A Novel

by Alan Furst

  The following day, he waited until one in the afternoon, rode a taxi across the Szechenyi Bridge, and made his way to Ilka's Bar. Which was small and dark and almost deserted--only one other customer, a tall attractive woman wearing a hat with a veil. She was not a casual patron but sat nervously upright, staring straight ahead, a handkerchief twisted in her hands.

  As for Gustav Husar, he was nowhere to be seen. Except on the walls: a glossy publicity photograph of a menacing Gypsy Gus applying a headlock to a bald fellow in white spangled tights, and framed clippings from newspapers: Gypsy Gus with his arm around a blond actress, a cigarette holder posed at an angle in her gloved hand; Gypsy Gus flanked by four men who could only have been Chicago gangsters; Gypsy Gus sitting on another wrestler as the referee raised his hand to slap the canvas, signaling a pin.

  Zannis had a cup of coffee, and another. Then, some forty-five minutes after he'd arrived, two men strolled into the bar, one with a slight bulge beneath the left-hand shoulder of his overcoat. He nodded to the barman, glanced at the woman, and had a long look at Zannis, who stared into his coffee cup. As the other man left, the barman took an orange, cut it in half, and began squeezing it in a juicer. Very quiet at Ilka's, the sound of juice splashing into a glass seemed quite loud to Zannis.

  The barman's timing was exquisite--so that Gustav Husar, entering the bar, could take his glass of orange juice to a table in the corner. Zannis started to rise, but the tall woman was already hurrying toward the table. There was not much to be seen of the wrestling Gypsy, Zannis realized, only the rounded shoulders and thick body of a man born to natural strength, now dressed in a cashmere overcoat and a stylish silk scarf. On his huge head, where only a fringe of graying hair remained, a black beret. He had blunt features and, flesh thickened at the edges, cauliflower ears. His eyes were close-set and sharp. Cunning was the word that came to Zannis.

  As Husar and the woman spoke in hushed tones, she reached beneath her veil and dabbed at her eyes with the handkerchief. Husar patted her arm, she opened her purse, and took out an envelope. This she handed to Husar, who slid it in the pocket of his overcoat. Then she hurried out the door, head held high but still dabbing at her eyes. The man with the bulging overcoat was suddenly at Zannis's table and said something in Hungarian. Zannis indicated he didn't understand. "I can speak German," he said in that language. "Or maybe English." Foreseeing the difficulties of a Greek needing to speak with a Hungarian, he had studied his English phrasebook, working particularly on words he knew he'd require.

  The man turned, walked over to Husar, and spoke to him briefly. Husar stared at Zannis for a time, then beckoned to him. As Zannis seated himself, Husar said, "You speak English?"

  "Some."

  "Where you from? Ilka's in the office, she speaks everything."

  "Greek?"

  "Greek!" Husar gazed at him as though he were a novelty, produced for Husar's amusement. "A cop," he said. "All the way from Greece."

  "How do you know I'm a cop?" Zannis said, one careful word at a time.

  Husar shrugged. "I know," he said. "I always know. What the hell you doing up here?"

  "A favor. I need a favor. Sami Pal gave me your name."

  Husar didn't like it. "Oh?" was all he said, but it was more than enough.

  "Sami gave me the name, Mr. Husar, nothing else."

  "Okay. So?"

  "A favor. And I will pay for it."

  Husar visibly relaxed. A corrupt cop. This he understood. "Yeah? How much you pay?"

  "Two thousand dollars."

  Husar swore in Hungarian and his eyes widened. "Some favor! I don't kill politicians, mister--"

  "Zannis. My first name is Costa."

  "Your right name? I don't care, but--"

  "It is."

  "Okay. What you want from me?" I'm going to say no, but I want to hear it.

  "You know people escape from Germany?"

  "Some, yeah. The lucky ones."

  "I help them."

  Husar gave him a long and troubled look. Finally he said, "You are, maybe, Gestapo?"

  "No. Ask Sami."

  "Okay, maybe I believe you. Say I let you give me two thousand dollars, then what?"

  "People come off the ..." For a moment, Zannis's English failed him; then it worked. "People come off the excursion steamer from Vienna and get on the train to Yugoslavia. Zagreb, maybe Belgrade. You hide them, help them safe on the train."

  Husar puffed his cheeks and blew out a sound, pouf, then looked uncertain. "Not what I do, mister. I run business, here in Budapest."

  "This is business."

  "It ain't business, don't bullshit me, it's politics."

  Zannis waited. Husar drank some of his juice. "Want some orange juice?"

  "No, thank you."

  "Why I said Gestapo is, they're around, you understand? And they play tricks, these guys. Smart tricks." He leaned forward and said, "The Germans try to take over here. And there's Hungarians want to help them. But not me. Not us, see? You got this problem? In Greece?"

  "No."

  "We got it here." He drank more juice, and made a decision. "How I find out what you want? What people? When? Where?"

  "You own a cop here, Mr. Husar?"

  "Gus."

  "Gus."

  "Yeah, sure, I do. I own a few."

  "We send him ... It's like a telegram, a police telegram."

  "Yeah? Like a 'wanted' notice?"

  "Yes. It must be a detective."

  "I got that. It's easy."

  "Just give me a name."

  "First the dollars, mister."

  "In a week."

  "You don't have with you?"

  Zannis shook his head.

  Husar almost laughed. "Only a cop--"

  "You will have the money."

  "Okay. Come back here tonight. Then, maybe."

  Zannis stood up. Husar also rose and they shook hands. Husar said, "It's not for me, the money. Me, I might just do it for the hell of it, because I don't like the Germans, and they don't like me. So, let's see about you, I'll call Sami today."

  "I'll be back tonight," Zannis said.

  It snowed again that evening, big slow flakes drifting past the streetlamps, but Ilka's Bar was warm and bright and crowded with people. A thieves' den, plain to be seen, but the sense of family was heavy in the air. Gustav Husar laughed and joked, rested a big arm across Zannis's shoulders, marking him as okay in here, among Husar's boys. Thugs of all sorts, at least two of them with knife scars on the face, their women wearing plenty of makeup. There was even a kid-size mascot, likely still a teenager, with dark skin and quick dark eyes, who told Zannis his name was Akos. He spoke a little German, did Akos, and explained that his name meant "white falcon." He was proud of that. And, Zannis sensed, dangerous. Cops knew. Very dangerous. But, that night, friendly as could be. Zannis also met Ilka, once beautiful, still sexy, and it was she who gave him a piece of paper with the name of a detective, a teletype number, and a way to send the money--by wire--to a certain person at a certain bank.

  Very organized, Zannis thought, Sami Pal's crowd.

  19 December. Vangelis might have waited weeks to connect Zannis with secret money, and Zannis wouldn't have said a word, but there were newspaper headlines every morning, and speeches on the radio, and talk in the tavernas, so nobody waited weeks for anything, not any more they didn't.

  Thus Vangelis telephoned on the morning of the nineteenth; come to lunch, he said, at the Club de Salonique at one-thirty, yes? Oh yes. The twenty-sixth of December, when the "Hartmanns" would be leaving Berlin, was closing in fast, and Zannis knew he had to get the two thousand dollars into the account Husar controlled in Budapest.

  Zannis was prompt to the minute, but he'd got it wrong--his first thought, anyhow. From the glasses on the table and the ashtray, he could see that Vangelis and Nikolas Vasilou had been there for a while. Then, as both men rose to greet him, Zannis realized this was simply St. Vangelis at work, making time to say things to Vasil
ou about him that couldn't be said once he'd arrived. "Am I late?" Zannis said.

  "Skata! My memory!" Vangelis said. Then, "It's all my fault, Costa. But no matter, here we are."

  Vasilou was taller than Zannis, lean and straight-backed, with a prominent beak of a nose, sharp cheekbones, ripples of oiled silver hair combed back from his forehead, and a thin line for a mouth. "Very pleased to meet you," he said, his eyes measuring Zannis. Friend? Foe? Prey?

  They ordered a second bottle of retsina, with lamb and potatoes to follow, and they talked. The war, the local politics, the city, the weather, the war. Eventually the main course showed up and they talked some more. Zannis contributed little, his status well below that of his partners at luncheon. Smiled at their quips, nodded at their insights, tried not to get food on his tie. Finally, as triangles of tired-looking baklava arrived on the club's French china, Vangelis excused himself to go to the bathroom.

  The businessman Vasilou wasted no time. "The commissioner tells me that you need, how shall we say ... private money? A secret fund?"

  "That's true," Zannis said. He sensed that Vasilou had not made up his mind, so the instinct to persuade, to say more, to say too much, was strong inside him but, with difficulty, he fought it off.

  "Money that cannot, he tells me, come from the city treasury."

  Zannis nodded. After a moment he said, "Would you like me to explain?"

  "No, not the details," Vasilou said, protecting himself. "How much are we talking about?"

  Zannis gave the number in drachma, two hundred and fifty thousand, his tone neutral, and not dramatic. "It will have to be paid out in dollars," he said, "the way life works in Europe these days."

  "A lot of money, my friend. Something short of twenty-five thousand dollars."

  "I know," Zannis said, looking gloomy. "Perhaps too much?"

  Vasilou did not take the bait and play the tycoon. He looked, instead, thoughtful--what am I getting myself into? The silence grew, Zannis became aware of low conversation at other tables, the discreet music of lunch in a private dining room. Vasilou looked away, toward the window, then met Zannis's eyes and held them. "Can you confirm," he said, "that this money will be spent for the benefit of our country?"

  "Of course it will be." That was a lie.

  And Vasilou almost knew it, but not quite. "You're sure?" was the best he could do.

  "You have my word," Zannis said.

  Vasilou paused, then said, "Very well." Not in his voice, it wasn't very well, but he'd been trapped and had no way out.

  Vangelis returned to the table but did not sit down. "I've got to forgo the baklava," he said, glancing at his watch.

  "They will wrap it up for you," Vasilou said, looking for the waiter.

  "No, no. Another time. And I really shouldn't." Vangelis shook hands with both of them and made his way out of the dining room.

  "A valued friend," Vasilou said. "He speaks well of you, you know."

  "I owe him a great deal. Everything. And he believes in ... what I'm doing."

  "Yes, I know he does, he said he did." Vasilou paused, then said, "He also told me you might some day become commissioner of police, here in Salonika."

  "Far in the future," Zannis said. "So I don't think about things like that." But you'd better.

  Vasilou reached inside his jacket--revealing a swath of white silk lining--and took out a checkbook and a silver pen. "Made out to you? In your name?" he said. "You can convert this to dollars at the bank." Vasilou wrote out the check, signed it, and handed it to Zannis.

  They spoke briefly, after that, a reprise of the lunch conversation, then left the club together. Walked down the stairs and out the front door, where a white Rolls-Royce was idling at the curb. As they said good-bye, Zannis looked over Vasilou's shoulder. The face of the woman, staring out the window of the backseat, was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Olive skin, golden hair--truly gold, not blond--pulled straight back, eyes just barely suggesting an almond shape, as though wrought by a Byzantine painter.

  Vasilou turned to see what Zannis was looking at and waved to the woman. For an instant her face was still, then it came alive, like an actress before the camera: the corners of the full lips turned up, but the rest of the perfect face remained perfectly composed. Flawless.

  "Can we drop you somewhere?" Vasilou said. He didn't mean it; Zannis had had from him all he was going to get for one day.

  "No, thanks. I'll walk."

  Slowly, the window of the Rolls was lowered. She was wearing a bronze-colored silk shirt and a pearl necklace just below her throat. "Can you get in front, darling?" she said. "I've got packages in back."

  Vasilou gave Zannis a certain look: women, they shop. A chauffeur slid from behind the wheel, circled the car, and opened the front door.

  "Again, thank you," Zannis said.

  Vasilou nodded, brusque and dismissive, as though Zannis, by taking his money, had become a servant. Then walked quickly to his car.

  *

  26 December. Berlin.

  Only the wealthy could afford to live in the Dahlem district of Berlin, a neighborhood of private homes with gardens. The houses were powerfully built, of sober stone or brick, often three stories high, sometimes with a corner tower, while the lawns and plantings were kept with the sort of precision achieved only by the employment of gardeners. However, in the last month of 1940, hidden here and there--one didn't want to be seen to acknowledge shortage--were the winter remains of vegetable gardens. Behind a fieldstone wall, a rabbit hutch. And the rising of the weak sun revealed the presence of two or three roosters. In Dahlem! But the war at sea was, in Berlin and all of Germany, having its effect.

  At five-thirty, on a morning that seemed to her cruelly cold, wet, and dark, Emilia Krebs rang the chime on the door of the Gruen household. She too lived in Dahlem, not far away, but she might have driven had not gasoline become so severely rationed. When the door was answered, by a tall distinguished-looking gentleman, Emilia said, "Good morning, Herr Hartmann." That was Herr Gruen's new name, his alias for the journey to Salonika.

  He nodded, yes, I know, and said, "Hello, Emmi."

  Emilia carried a thermos of real coffee, hard to find these days, and a bag of freshly baked rolls, made with white flour. Stepping inside, she found the Gruen living room almost barren, what with much of the furniture sold. On the walls, posters had been tacked up to cover the spaces where expensive paintings had once hung. The telephone sat on the floor, its cord unplugged from the wall--the Gestapo could listen to your conversation if the phone was plugged in. She greeted Frau Gruen, as pale and exhausted as her husband, then went to the coat closet in the hall and opened the door. The Gruens' winter coats, recently bought from a used-clothing stall, were heavily worn but acceptable. They mustn't, she knew, look like distressed aristocracy.

  Emilia Krebs tried, at least, to be cheerful. The Gruens--he'd been a prominent business attorney--were old friends, faithful friends, but today they would be leaving Germany. Their money was almost all gone, their car was gone, soon the house would be gone, and word had reached them from within the Nazi administration--from Herr Gruen's former law clerk--that by the end of January they would be gone as well. They were on a list, it was simply a matter of time.

  Frau Gruen poured coffee into chipped mugs but refused a roll. "I can't eat," she said, apology in her voice. She was short and plump and had, in better times, been the merriest sort of woman--anyone could make her laugh. Now she followed Emilia's eyes to a corner of the living room where a green fedora-like slouch hat rested on a garden chair. "Let me show you, Emmi," she said, retrieving the hat and setting it on her head, tilting the brim over one eye. "So?" she said. "How do I look?"

  Like a middle-aged Jewish woman. "You look perfect," Emilia said. "Very Marlene Dietrich."

  The hat was meant to provide a kind of shadow, obscuring her friend's face, but if the Gruens, traveling as the Hartmanns, ran into difficulties, it would be because of the way Frau Gruen look
ed. Their papers, passports and exit visas, were excellent forgeries, because resistance friends of Emilia's had managed to link up with a Communist cell--they left anti-Nazi leaflets in public buildings--and with this very dangerous connection had come one of the most desirable people to know these days in Berlin: a commercial printer.

  Emilia and the Gruens drank their mugs of coffee in silence, there was nothing more to say. When they were done, Emilia said, "Would you care for company on the way to the tram?"

  "Thank you, Emmi," Herr Gruen said, "but we'll go by ourselves, and say farewell to you now."

  And so they did.

  They left early, seeking the most crowded trains, and they were not disappointed. During the run to Dresden, two and a half hours, they stood in the corridor, packed in with people of all sorts, many with bulky parcels and suitcases. Their own luggage was a simple leather valise, packed for the eyes of customs officers. On this leg of the journey they were ignored, and the passport control on the German side of the Czech border was perfunctory. They were on their way to Vienna, part of the Reich, and so were most of the other passengers. Not quite so smooth was the entry control on the other side of the border--by then it was two-thirty. The officers here were Sudeten Germans, newly empowered, and so conscientious. One of them had a good long look at Frau Gruen, but was not quite so discourteous as to mention that he thought she looked like a Jew. He stared, but that was it, and so failed to notice the thin line of perspiration at her husband's hairline--on a frigid afternoon. But their papers were in order and the officer stamped their visas.

  Vienna was a long way from Prague, some eight hours on the express train. Here the Hartmanns were in a first-class compartment, where passengers were rarely subject to unscheduled security checks by Gestapo detectives. One didn't want to annoy powerful people. The Gruens, in preparatory conversation with Emilia and her friends, had determined that friendly chitchat was dangerous, better to remain silent and aloof. But certain travelers, especially the newly prosperous, felt that first-class status was an opportunity to converse with interesting people and were not so easily turned aside. Thus a woman in the seat across from Frau Gruen, who said, "What takes you to Vienna?"