by Gerald Jay
“A pleasure,” said Reiner, closing the deal with a stiff handshake.
After their guest had left—carrying with him a Paris phone number to be called as soon as he’d taken care of the matter—Émile turned with a worried look to his friend.
“What do you think of Herr Reiner?”
“He dresses well.”
“He can afford to on what he charges. He may be an Ossi, but he behaves like a capitalist.”
Blond sneered. “I’ll say …”
“Okay—but I think he’s the right man for the job. Time to call the Quai d’Orsay. We can let Simone know we’ve made all the arrangements. Keep her up to speed.”
“And the price?”
“What the hell! If he’s as good as they say he is, he’s worth every centime to our friends. We’ll know soon enough.”
4
L’ERMITAGE, TAZIAC
Ali Sedak was putting up another section of drywall, hammering away, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. Startled, he whirled around. A big gray-haired guy in blazing red pajamas. He seemed pissed about the noise. It was the new renter of L’Ermitage who had arrived with his wife late last evening. Ali had awakened them. Too damn bad! It was almost eight o’clock! Who isn’t up by then except moneybags and pimps? Ali told him that he was doing work for the owner—turning the old barn into a guesthouse. “It’s a big job for one man,” he said. “Unless I get started early, I’ll still be working here by La Toussaint.”
Ben Reece didn’t care if it took him till Kwanzaa. All he was asking Ali to do was start a little later in the morning and work a little later at night. Ben could feel the blood rush to his face as he raised his voice, trying to make this guy understand his French, though he was sure that he did. Their plane trip from New York had been stinko, and even in first class he couldn’t sleep. Let alone here last night on his bed’s thin, miserable mattress. It was worse than an exercise mat. Who needs a large eighteenth-century hilltop country house with a tower, a private swimming pool, and twelve exquisite woodland acres in the Dordogne if nobody can sleep? He and his friends were paying a helluva lot of money for this French vacation, goddamn it! So not until ten, he said. Okay?
Ali said nothing. He simply threw down his hammer in disgust, grabbed his T-shirt, and left.
Judy, looking out of their bedroom window in the main house, had been anxiously watching for her husband’s return. She knew Ben’s temper. Then she saw the surly expression on the young man’s face as he came out the barn door. Naked from the waist up, he was well built—compact but not very tall. He had a blue bandanna tied around his forehead and looked like an Arab with his dark skin, his black Persian-lamb hair. She watched as he went quickly to the beat-up white VW parked behind their new rented Peugeot and got in. But where was her husband? “Ben?” she cried, her fear mounting. “Ben!”
The call from Montreal was Schuyler, Ben’s old roommate and friend from Dartmouth days. He and Ann Marie had been delayed. Business, of course. They’d be flying out to Paris on the Concorde and then down to the Dordogne. Be there that evening. He couldn’t wait. Love to them both.
Going into town was Judy’s idea. She was thinking of making a dinner for the Phillipses by way of welcoming them. Taziac was already bustling when they drove into the quaint, partially restored medieval village. The outdoor market was in back of the Gothic church. Judy, who loved to cook, decided on the thick white asparagus and a roast chicken for dinner. There would be a mushroom stuffing using the local cèpes, described in her Périgord cookbook as fungi royalty with an earthy smell that hinted at the woods where they grew. For the wines, Ben chose some good bottles of Sancerre and Médoc, and a straw-yellow Rosette from the vineyards of nearby Monbazillac, home of the great dessert wines.
As he picked up the bottles, Judy asked, “Can you manage all that?”
Ben had noticed lately his wife’s growing concern about his drinking. Preferring to avoid a hassle, he said, “What about bread?”
In search of a bakery, they walked by the old castle that was now the Taziac town hall. Posted outside were public bulletins. The one at the top was from the Ministère de l’Intérieur announcing that La Police Judiciaire wanted the Corsican guy in the picture. Presumed to be “très dangereux et armé.” And warning that he was not to be approached under any circumstances.
Ben said, “Good advice. Leave it to the pros. He looks like one tough cookie to me.”
“It’s only the haircut, dear. You wouldn’t look so good either if your barber used a machete.”
Her husband was not amused. “The man’s a murderer,” he pointed out.
Judy thought he had nice eyes.
Up the gravel road, there was a small boulangerie-pâtisserie surrounded by baskets of fuchsias, pansies, and pinks in a half-timbered English Tudor–style town house. As they opened the glass door, the sweet aroma was overwhelming. In front were a couple of small unoccupied tables, on one an empty coffee cup and a plate with a leftover piece of pastry. Nobody was behind the counter. Judy was contemplating a glorious caramelized tarte tatin when she heard what sounded like the explosive flushing of a toilet from somewhere deep inside the house. Suddenly out came a bear of a man with a great drooping mustache and eyebrows to match. Zipping up his fly, he seemed almost as surprised as they were.
Judy quickly asked for a pain de campagne and a baguette.
The big guy glanced around the shop, then, nodding, he took down the loaves and wrapped them up.
Ben hoped there was a sign in the bathroom reminding employees to wash their hands.
“Et ça aussi,” Judy said, indicating the last tarte tatin in the display case, which he promptly took out and slipped into a box. He was tying it up, his big hands doing a surprisingly elegant job with a green ribbon, when the front door opened and Gabrielle, a pretty teenage girl, came rushing in. Straightening her apron and her blond ponytail, she said, “Oh—Monsieur Mazarelle …” She appeared flustered to see him serving the customers. She apologized for taking so long to deliver the bread and, winking at him as she snatched the pie out of his hands, asked Judy if she wanted anything else.
A smart kid, Paul Mazarelle thought. He was fond of Gaby but hoped she wasn’t too smart-ass for her own good, always dans la lune, caught up with boys and dreams the same way her mother had been. He scoffed up the last little piece of his luscious tartelette myrtille, pulled on his jacket, took out his pipe. “Au revoir, chérie,” Mazarelle called. Exchanging an amused smile with the customers, he trudged past them out the door. He’d already noted the expensive sunglasses, the gray hair and sportif clothes, the accent—Americans, of course.
Ben watched him go. An odd walk with a little hitch in it. He may no longer be in playing shape, Ben thought, but he’s still got the size of a rugby player and a granite jaw to match.
Judy asked the young girl if that was her boss, and she had to laugh the way young people do at silliness. Her aunt, Madame Charpentier, owned the shop and was upstairs in bed with le rhumatisme. That was Monsieur Mazarelle, she explained, the famous police inspector from Bergerac who lives here in town. He comes in almost every day for breakfast since his wife died. Everyone knows the inspector, she told them. Il est très gentil.
On the way out of the store, Judy whispered, “In Taziac everyone knows the inspector.”
“He’s hard to miss.”
5
FRANKFURT
Kring in Frankfurt had just what Reiner wanted. He was a good businessman, had proven dependable in the past, and knew how to keep his mouth shut. Reiner telephoned and made an appointment to see him the next morning.
Reiner’s small cramped apartment in the old East Berlin working-class district of Prenzlauer Berg was drafty regardless of the season but especially just before sunrise. Even so, he preferred living inconspicuously in this neighborhood, with its hippies, artists, and outcasts, while working in Berlin. He knew the area well and no one bothered him.
He moved around a lot in his
business, and having a few different places to operate from made life easier.
Rolling over on his bed, Reiner waited a few minutes before throwing off the covers. In the austere bathroom—his bare feet accustomed to the cold cement floor—he removed a small can from a paper bag, shook it well, and sprayed its contents carefully over his hair, turning it from blond to anthracite black. As long as he didn’t wash the black out and refreshed the temporary color from time to time, his hair would pass muster. He rummaged through the few neatly hung suits and jackets in his closet for something to put on. Hurrying because he was running a little late. Any time he went out of town, if only for a day, he made certain to leave the apartment immaculate. In his business you couldn’t be too careful. An hour later when he left for the airport, he was wearing paint-stained jeans, an old weathered leather jacket, and a red Bayern München cap—its concave peak pulled low on his forehead.
The flight from Berlin to Frankfurt was little more than an hour, and when he arrived at Kring’s place of business, it was not yet 9 a.m. The store looked closed, but the flashing red lightbulbs spelled out HOME SEXY (OPEN 24-7). Inside were long tables full of adult videocassettes and a couple of gray-faced early-bird browsers bent over them. They paid no attention to the new customer. Walking to the doorway at the back of the store, Reiner ignored the Eintritt verboten sign and brushed aside the curtains.
Kring, a fat man in a wrinkled gray vest, turned from the closed-circuit screen where he had been watching him. “Ach! Bitte, mein Herr.” He pointed to the chair next to his. “Good to see you again.”
“So, you have something for me, Herr Kring?”
Holding his back, Kring, a chronic sufferer, slowly got up. He smelled of licorice, cough drops, and menthol. “A minute.”
When he returned from the back room, Kring emptied the envelope he was carrying and produced a French passport, carte d’identité, and driver’s license. They had belonged to Pierre Barmeyer, a thirty-seven-year-old French schoolteacher from Strasbourg. Reiner closely studied the three documents and the attached photos under the desk lamp. An interesting choice, he thought. He’d gotten so used to the name Klaus Reiner that he’d almost forgotten his real name. But he was nothing if not adaptable. Barmeyer was near the same age as he was, grew up in an Alsatian city on the border of Germany—which would help to explain the faint accent in his French—and even bore a slight resemblance to him.
Kring saw it too. “He could be your brother.”
“Alive or dead?”
Kring hesitated.
“I told you that I wanted the owner dead.”
“He could be, I think he may be. But I’m not sure. His papers were ‘found’ in a hotel room in Gstaad.”
Dead was always better as far as Reiner was concerned. Less chance of his papers having been reported stolen to the authorities.
“How much?” he asked.
A smile flickered at the corners of Kring’s cracked, puffy lips. Replacing the three documents in the envelope, he handed them to his visitor. “For you, mein Herr, seven hundred marks.”
Reiner wasn’t pleased. “I could get high-quality fakes for less.”
“Ja, but not like these. The same signature on each one and each of them still valid for another year or more. A matching set and, as you see, the real thing in mint condition.” But Reiner refused to budge.
“Okay, okay.” Kring’s hands fell helplessly to his sides in defeat. “Let’s not argue over pfennigs. Ich gebe auf! Have it your way. Five twenty-five for the lot.”
Though mildly amused, Reiner knew that he wasn’t likely to do better elsewhere, and he didn’t have time to shop around. He handed the money to Kring with a warning. “No one must know of my visit. Understood?”
“Jawohl, mein Herr! Natürlich. You have my word, as always.”
“If not,” Reiner tucked the envelope under his arm, “I’ll have your eyeballs for breakfast.”
The photographs, of course, would have to be replaced. In the taxi on his way across town, Reiner eyed the steel and glass boxes they passed, struck once again by how boring this banking and industrial center seemed every time he visited. A gray city on a humid gray day. The one building that he liked was the new Commerzbank headquarters, the tallest building in Europe, thrusting high above the old cathedral spire, its soaring tower the spirit of the new Germany. Anything was possible nowadays to ambitious young men and women with exciting dreams.
Scheffler Photographie was on a quiet, winding back street opposite a mustard-colored three-story stucco apartment house. The sign in the window promised photographs for all occasions—births, weddings, anniversaries—and passport pictures while you wait. Reiner, announced by a tinny bell, entered the shop. On the wall behind the counter were large photographs of smiling bridal couples and an apple-cheeked young girl with blond braids, her hands clasped in prayer.
From the studio inside, a worried-looking Turk with a stubby black beard appeared and greeted him. His eyes—big, dark, expressive—were those of a silent film actor.
“Where’s Scheffler?”
“Herr Scheffler has retired. He lives in Brazil now. Can I be of help?”
“It still says Scheffler outside.”
“The name Scheffler is well-known in this neighborhood. My customers don’t like change.”
“And who are you?”
“Kara. Akin Kara. I’m the new owner. What sort of work are you looking for, mein Herr?”
Reiner hesitated, sized him up. Kara might be okay, but could the Turk keep his mouth shut? “I need some official photographs. Scheffler did special things for me. Do you handle custom jobs?”
Kara understood perfectly. Assuring him that he did, he invited the customer inside to his private office. Kara’s studio was little more than a metal chair for the sitter, a white curtain for backdrop, a few tripods with cameras, and an umbrella light. In the corner, a small wooden table and chairs—his office.
“Bitte,” said Kara. Reiner sat down and emptied his envelope on the table. The photographer examined each document with the care of a jeweler. Then taking out a package of Wests, he offered one to Reiner, who wasn’t interested, and lit up.
“Well?” Reiner asked impatiently.
“The expiration dates are all different, which is good, but that means two of the three pictures will require retouching for a slightly different look.”
“Exactly.”
“No problem. All together you’ll need three three-and-a-half-by-four-and-a-half-centimeter black-and-white photos. Full face. Let’s get started. I have an appointment in half an hour.” The photographer went over and turned on his lights. “First we’ll take some with the jacket on and then without. Take off your hat, bitte.”
The picture taking lasted about twenty minutes. Kara used an old Hasselblad rather than a Polaroid, explaining that he preferred the Swedish camera for special quality work. He chain-smoked nervously throughout the photo session. Though he asked the sitter if he was from Frankfurt, and one or two other questions to pass the time as he adjusted his camera and lighting, Reiner ignored him. He was a little too inquisitive for his own good. Once Kara was interrupted by the telephone. When he came back, he seemed even more upset than he had been. Perhaps it was the fixed, unsmiling expression of his customer that was rattling him.
“How long will it take to develop them?” Reiner asked, after he’d finished.
“Not long.” Kara showed him the darkroom, which was right behind the studio. When he opened the door, the smell of vinegar was strong.
“What’s that?”
“Fixative. Acetic acid. It’s used in the developing process.”
“Be careful with that cigarette.”
“Oh no.” The photographer laughed. “It’s only a weak ten-percent solution.”
“I don’t like the smell. I’ll wait outside.”
“Look,” Kara explained, afraid that his strange customer was going to be difficult. “This will take some time. It’s not on
ly the developing and printing that has to be done. On two of the pictures I’ve got to touch up your chin with stubble and, most difficult of all, reproduce the official stamps that must be placed in the corners. That means I’m going to need at least an hour after closing to finish the work. When you come back at six, knock hard on the front door in case I’m in the back. Rest assured, everything will be ready for you.”
Reiner stared at him and saw a flicker of fear in Kara’s eyes. “Don’t fail me. And remember … not a word about this to anyone or I can guarantee this will not be the happiest day of your life. By the way, how much do I owe you?”
“Not now, bitte. We’ll talk about that when you return and see how well you like my work.”
Reiner didn’t trust a man who hesitated to name his price. The fact that the Turk had his picture only complicated matters. He was worried that his visit to Herr Kara might end badly if he wasn’t prepared to take measures, should measures be necessary. Later in the main reading room of the municipal library, Reiner found exactly the information that he was looking for. At 6 p.m., he was back pounding on the photographer’s door despite the sign in the window that said CLOSED.
Fumbling with the lock, Kara let him in. He appeared flustered but announced that everything was in order for Herr Barmeyer. Motioning for him to follow, he led the way into the darkroom. This time Reiner said nothing about the smell.
On the light box, which Kara switched on, the three documents were displayed like rare books. Reiner examined the passport picture first because it was the most important and most difficult to insert. Kara, puffing nervously on his cigarette, stood at his side and watched. It was excellent work, good enough to get by even a more than casual scrutiny. Then the other two photographs. The unshaven cheeks and scruffiness made him look like an artist. Reiner liked that.
Kara said, “I thought you’d be satisfied.” It was then that he told him how much it would cost.
