All of it was swallowed up in exchange for the grease, oil and gasoline needed, the thumbs-up given and a ‘beat it’ until next time.
‘Everything is organized because it has to be,’ went on Dillmann, taking a breath and grinning from ear to ear before breaking out the cigars, even to lighting them. ‘Within the hour, their half will be sold on the streets or to the shops, restaurants and hotels, our half as well.’
‘Since it only takes about ten minutes to drive from one side of the city to the other, eh?’
‘Maxim’s, the Ritz, the Hotel George V, the Boeuf sur le Toit and the Grand Vévour for us, the Druant, too, others also, of course.’
‘Chez Rudi’s?’
‘Ach, you’re not here to find out about my travels, but that place too, since it’s right across the Champs-Élysées from the Lido and Rudi’s a valued customer as is the Lido. But rumours are flying, my Hermann. A gazo, a Schmuggler, and a person who a Standartenführer and a Kriminalrat want so desperately they would hold up traffic for hours and hours? Kaltenbrunner must have told them not to say a thing to anybody, so let me hear from yourself what you’ve thought to involve me and my men in without first asking.’
Everything was rumour these days, Mundfunk* its primary source. ‘We simply don’t know, that’s why I’ve come to the fountain.’
Rudi was that and everyone knew it. ‘Flattery I don’t need, not when that truck of mine should be leaving.’
‘Then if you were a Schmuggler using a gazo they wanted what would you do?’
‘Stop and change trucks. Use one that burned diesel or gasoline, or take the time out to change over the original.’
‘And get you to let them in?’
A dark look should be given but there wasn’t time. ‘Or someone as capable. I’m not the only one, Hermann. Surely you know this?’
‘That package has a cut on the hand or forearm.’
‘That why you wanted Schütze Hartmann’s first-aid kit, the one he was wearing on his belt when I dropped him off here and told him to obey me and no one else?’
‘That package may need it’s antibacterial.’
‘And big words, is it? Such a concern tells me that package is a skirt but is she eine Jüdin, Hermann?’
‘Eine Halbjüdin, we think.’
‘From the Netherlands, is it?’
‘That too.’
‘And have they a Spitzel aboard?’
‘We think so.’
‘You think a lot, but that must be why they haven’t posted photos of her.’
‘Probably.’
‘Not probably, mein Lieber. For Herr Kaltenbrunner to send a Sonderkommando after a skirt, she has to be carrying something really big or about to lead them to it, since silence is the order of the day.’
‘Just don’t ask me what it is, for we haven’t a clue, but don’t broadcast what you’ve found out either. Let us find her first. Look for that cut and let me know if they come in through that entrance of yours or any of the others you might hear about.’
And a deal, was it? ‘A blonde and a perfect Nazi breeding ground if they were to overlook that other half?’
‘Just leave a message with Rudi. Tell him where we can meet up.’
‘You and that partner of yours go there often, do you?’
‘Louis has to eat and so do I.’
Hermann could have him by the balls any time he wanted, but it was also good to know where he could be found. ‘I’ll have to tell Herr Sturmbacher there’s something in it for himself. For myself and my men, of course, the half of what that girl is carrying or leading the others to, yourself to pay Rudi out of your share, not ours.’
The son of a bitch, but it would have to be said. ‘Agreed. Now tell me about those vans the Banque Nationale de Crédit et Commercial sends through yourself and your boys.’
Hartmann must have said something. ‘Bankers are like whores, Hermann. Questions only make them curious. Both are dishonest.’
‘Each driver hands you the envelope, does he?’
‘No questions are asked, no answers given.’
‘But I’m still the one who’s asking and now I’m telling.’
He would do that too. ‘Ach, that bank brings people in as well as stuff for the schwarzer Markt. Since its Chairman Bolduc is far better organized even than myself and has far too many friends in high places, and others as well, I tend to look the other way. Now give me that bundle of 5,000-franc notes you’re still clutching. I’ll get the one note from Hartmann so that there’ll be nothing missing from it and no further misunderstanding.’
‘There are still the sardines, the champagne and …’
‘For yourself. We haven’t time.’
At a shout, the big doors were again shoved open by Hartmann, the truck backing out, Dillmann leaving him with, ‘Ja, mein lieber Hermann, Chez Rudi’s it is,’ so that the words hung on the air like a horse about to be slaughtered.
Louis had better have found out something.
There was still no sign of Hermann. Though the war was going badly for the Reich, and some day soon this Occupation would end, here at Chez Rudi’s during the Saturday cinq à sept, most would never have known it. Beer-hall big and full of uniforms, everywhere there was boisterous talk and bustling waitresses, but at this table, having drained the last of a bottle of Jägermeister, an uninvited Heinrich Ludin fought off another stomach spasm to light yet another cigarette, offering none and waiting impatiently for that empty chair to be filled.
Having ordered a plate of crackling, the Gestapo chose a piece, but found that the teeth and stomach rebelled. ‘Verfluchte Franzose, don’t you dare fuck with me! I want everything you and that disloyal Kripo know, since he has apparently forgotten he was to meet you here.’
Hermann must have seen him, but to ask who had informed on their meeting here would not be wise.
‘Just cut the Quatsch and tell me where the hell he went after that bank’s garage.’
‘I have absolutely no idea. Hermann and I often work independently, only to meet up in places like this.’
‘And yourself, where did you go?’ Another spasm led to the cigarette’s falling to the floor where it couldn’t be recovered.
‘Myself? Ach, here, there, and forced to discover how the city’s bus fleet has again been cut. With every second métro station closed to save power, time means nothing, even if in a bicycle taxi.’
‘Did I not say don’t bugger about with me?’
‘Then let me remind you that this is a murder inquiry and that if you have needed information, by law in France, you are required to impart it.’
The avenue Foch had said that neither Kohler nor St-Cyr would cooperate unless a lot of squeeze was applied. ‘Lieber Gott, Schweinebulle, have you not realized what I can have done to that Russian songbird of yours?’
Stage name, Gabrielle Arcuri; maiden name Natalya Kulakov-Myshkin until she’d become Madame Thériault and a war widow first encountered in December last. ‘Are you threatening me as you did Hermann?’
‘We’ll include those two old lesbians at the shop Enchantment that Kohler’s got looking after his women. The KZ at Dachau or the one at Mauthausen would suit, and if not those, then the furnaces at Auschwitz since the Führer has absolutely no regard for such filth nor do I. And as for that songbird, not all White Russians are above reproach. Cough up or she’ll become just like one of these.’
Breaking a crackling in half, grimacing due to the stomach, Ludin set the pieces in front of him. Golden brown, crisp and well salted, they were to have gone with the untouched steins of Dortmunder that Rudi had sent to the table, the beer flown in on yesterday morning’s Lufthansa’s early flight from Berlin since today it had been far too foggy.
‘Don’t continue to be troublesome,’ said Ludin. ‘Gestapo Paris’s Watchers have an impressive dossier
on that songbird, even to the infrequency of the two of you getting together. All I have to do is indicate to Gestapo Boemelburg that it can no longer be overlooked even if our boys love to listen to her as do others in the Reich and at the front, thanks to Radio Paris and Radio Berlin.’
Something would have to be yielded. ‘I went to Saint-Ouen, to the flea market with this.’
A flat metal tin was slid across the table, the nude on its lid clear enough. ‘The Kippenzinn of whom?’ asked Ludin.
‘That is what I was hoping to determine. You see, Kriminalrat, we found it at l’Abbaye de Vauclair.’
And Kohler, being Kohler, had said nothing of it! ‘And?’
‘Several of the dealers gave me names and possible addresses of its buyer and the price paid, and of course each wanted to buy it back since they immediately realized I was a Sûreté.’
Opening the box, probing the butts with a nicotine-stained forefinger, Ludin said, ‘A traveller.’
‘A firebox feeder, we think, but not the killer.’
Touching the butts brought him so close to what must be the end of this nightmare, felt Ludin, the ulcer was momentarily calmed, for it had to be the box of Arie Beekhuis, the alias of Hans van Loos, age twenty-eight from Rotterdam. A former engine-room operator on a tanker, the Stukas had changed his mind 14 May 1940 when they had wiped out nearly a thousand in that city, putting an end to the young wife and their brand-new baby.
‘Everything, mein Lieber, or I’ll let you listen to that songbird’s screams.’
No doubt he would. ‘Then start by pulling the canvas from those two corpses. Tell us who their killer was. Ein Spitzel, Kriminalrat? You’ve been following that truck since it left Amsterdam. At each stop he’s told you of, your informant leaves a rijksdaaler in a designated place unless, and I must emphasize this, things are not going well. Then, and only then, is a note added and with it a bit of mud to secure the paper. What’s so important that Herr Kaltenbrunner would demand total secrecy from you and that colonel even though you, yourself, now desperately need our help and are insisting on it?’
‘An order is an order.’
‘Why is it then that you have failed to distribute copies of those photos of that girl to every Commissariat de Police for posting? What does she know or carry that is so vital you can’t even let Rudy de Mérode and his gang or any of the others know of it or of her? Instead, they attempt to follow us knowing only that there’s something big in the air because you and that SD colonel have virtually locked down every entrance to the city.’
Gut, that Dutch whore of Kohler’s had found the photos and the three coins and this one had finally realized he would have to yield what little that partnership of theirs now knew. ‘Keep the tin and enjoy the beer and crackling. Tell Kohler he has two days but that he is definitely to drag that sorry ass of his over to 84 avenue Foch first thing tomorrow morning, Sunday or no Sunday, or I will have those women prove it to you both that you will cooperate fully or else.’
Rudi Sturmbacher was swift. No sooner had Hermann taken a chair, then that booming voice and mountain of aproned flesh had descended on them, flour up to the elbows. ‘Helga, my beautiful young sister, the roast pork, the potato dumplings and spiced red cabbage for these two and a bottle of—ach, make it two—of the Schloss Johannisberg. Founded by Benedictines in the year 1100, damaged thoughtlessly by those shits in the RAF last year, that Schloss is still thumbing its nose at the British and providing us with pure magic.’
Grabbing the recently vacated chair, heaving himself into it, Rudi sat down, reached for the crackling and leaning forward over the whole table, dropped his voice to a whisper.
‘What’s going on, my Hermann? People like the one who just left come bearing papers from the Reichssicherheitshauptamt? You know as well as I that those people are untouchable. One glance at such papers is enough. No questions are ever asked. Everything wanted is done immediately.’
Pink-rimmed and small under flaxen brows, the pale blue eyes narrowed fiercely as this Bavarian with the round and florid cheeks doubled fists as big as hams.
‘Why here, why this one, Hermann, why yourself and why my restaurant for which I have slaved the whole of my life?’
Emotional enough, Helga must have been in tears. ‘Ach, it’s nothing, Rudi. Just some cock-up notion of Kaltenbrunner’s. Girls from Bucharest, Prague and Budapest, I think.’
‘Mädchenhandel?’
White-slave traffic. ‘Why else the acid in that Kriminalrat’s stomach when he’s used to hunting far bigger fish?’
Hermann was just ragging him. ‘It has to be because of what happened to our dear Doktor Ritter. Assassinated in our very own streets even though those verfluchte Banditen are being smashed all over France. Don’t those people know there is no hope for them? In June, over sixty terrorist cells from the Sedan through to Paris and on down the Loire to Nantes taken. More than five hundred tonnes of illegally parachuted explosives and weapons from the British recovered. Then in late August and early September another three hundred more arrests all the way down the Biscay Coast to the foothills of the Pyrenees and now yet another bunch of railway dynamiters in Brittany and more arrests. Wireless sets, guns and explosives.* Why must they ignore the fact that the Führer will never lose this war, not when he has …’
Heads were urgently motioned closer. ‘Wunderwaffen.’
Miracle weapons.
‘Flying bombs.’*
A veteran of the Munich Putsch, a Brownshirt survivor and dyed-in-the-wool Nazi whose hair was cut short and worn in SS and Wehrmacht style, Rudi reached for the stein a still upset Helga had quickly set before him only for her to then rush away.
Draining it, he wiped his lips on a forearm and said darkly, ‘If not the Banditen, my Hermann, then why did Herr Ludin threaten this one enough to cause him to slide the Kippenzinn of someone else across the table?’
‘And while you’re at it, Hermann, enlighten us as to who informed him that we would be meeting here?’
‘A private with bad eyesight.’
Or Dillmann himself. ‘Can no one be trusted?’
‘That little problem will be dealt with since a deal is a deal when cut.’
Fortunately Rudi was called away by a late delivery from a person named none other than Werner, Helga having brought their dinners and still unable to calm the tears. ‘My Hermann,’ she said, flooding him with those milkmaid-blue eyes. ‘Why us, why now when Rudi’s little Julie is about to give birth and his Yvette won’t even speak to him?’
‘Trouble always comes in threes, Helga. Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Just bring Louis a bottle of that red stuff Rudi uses to marinate the schnitzel and the liver.’
‘The Château Margaux or the Château Lafite?’
‘Either. Now let me dry those tears. Louis and I would never let anything bad happen to you and Rudi.’
Hesitant, the kiss became warmer when Hermann’s hands slipped down that blue work dress to those chunky hips.
Everyone took to cheering because Helga had been after Hermann ever since they’d started occasionally eating here back in the autumn of 1940… .
‘You’re a saint,’ said St-Cyr when she had left them. ‘Me, I’m impressed.’
‘Werner wouldn’t have told anyone anything, but his Schütze Hartmann, who sold me this first-aid kit, might have since he must have overheard that one mention Rudi’s name.’
‘And what, exactly, is this deal?’
‘Nothing, really. Werner will keep an eye out and let us know when and if anything turns up.’
‘Through Rudi?’
‘Ach, I had to tell him something and there wasn’t time to think about possible repercussions.’
They had eaten as few would in a city where far too many had to get by on less than 1,500 calories a day and the schools had cancelled all physical education. Helga, havi
ng brought second helpings of a magnificent Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte, now refreshed their coffee with another packet of cigarettes and a plate of Lebkuchen. A film, a dinner out would be racing through her mind, Hermann kissing the back of her hand, she rushing off with thoughts of the future.
‘Your “treasure,” Hermann? Did you have to say that to her? Haven’t we enough trouble?’
‘We may need Rudi’s help and that might just cement it. Bolduc’s vans are also moving people.’
‘Into and out of Paris? The PPF?’
‘Miliciens, too, probably, since the High Command are still reluctant to let those bastards leave the former free zone.’
Some had gotten in before and they had had a run-in with them, but this was terrible news for it had to mean Hector Bolduc and others of the far right must feel those types were desperately needed. A paramilitary force, the Milice française had only just been given a scattering of weapons, mainly captured British materiel that had been dropped to the Résistance. Violently anti-Communist, anti-de Gaulle, the Résistance, the Masons, Jews, Gypsies and others, they had quickly become known and hated for the savagery of their reprisals. ‘Perhaps that’s why Bolduc didn’t particularly care that one of his vans hadn’t arrived last Thursday and told Yvonne Rouget to give them another few days.’
‘But did our Anna-Marie know of what those bank vans were really up to, Louis? Is that not why, on seeing one at the side of the road ahead of them on the RD 380 to the east of Reims, she felt it would be a way of escaping the others and getting through the control?’
‘Or did they also know of her, Hermann?’
‘You’d better tell me what you’ve found.’
‘It’s where to begin that’s troubling me. Not only have I encountered a minefield, it’s bound to take us if we’re not careful.’
Breaking a couple of the cookies, Louis reminded himself of the aromas of nutmeg and cloves, and of allspice and ginger. Around them the earnest forgetfulness of the crowd hadn’t abated, more having arrived and waiting to be seated.
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