by Alan Furst
Salamone slowed down, then, staring at the rearview mirror, rolled to a stop. The Citroën also stopped. Then, slowly, swung around the Renault and pulled up beside it. A man in the passenger seat turned and looked at them for a moment, then said something to the driver, and the car drove away.
“What was that all about?” Elena said.
7 June, 8:20 A.M.
The Café le Repos was busy in the morning, customers two deep at the bar, saving a few sous on their coffee. In search of privacy, Weisz had taken a table in the far corner, backed up to the pebbled-glass partition. And there he waited, Le Journal unread before him, his coffee a dark stain at the bottom of the tiny cup, but no sign of Mr. Brown. Well, Kolb had warned him, these people had their own ways of doing business. Then, a man in a peaked cap left the bar, walked over to his table, and said, “Weisz?”
“Yes?”
“Come with me.”
Weisz left money on the table and followed the man outside. In the street a taxi was idling in front of the café. The man in the cap got behind the wheel and Weisz climbed into the back, where Mr. Brown was waiting for him. The usual Mr. Brown today, the smell of pipe smoke sweet in the air. “Good morning,” he said tartly. The taxi drove away and merged with the slow traffic on the rue Dauphine. “Pleasant morning, we have today.”
“Thank you for doing this,” Weisz said. “I had to talk to you, about your plans for Liberazione.”
“You’re referring to your little chat with Mr. Lane.”
“That’s right. We think it’s a good idea, but I need your help. To save a life.”
Brown’s eyebrows rose, and the pipe sent up an exclamatory puff of smoke. “What life is that?”
“The life of a friend. She’s been involved with a resistance group, in Berlin, and now she may be in trouble. Because, two days ago, I saw a cable at Reuters that could mean she’s been arrested.”
For a moment, Brown looked like a physician who’s been told something awful—bad as it was to you, he’d heard it all before. “You require a miracle, then everything will be hunky-dory. Is that the idea, Mr. Weisz?”
“Maybe a miracle, for me, but not for you.”
Brown took the pipe from his mouth and gave Weisz a long look. “Girlfriend, is it?”
“More than that.”
“And, truly, doing things in Berlin, against the Nazis? Not just being vocal at dinner parties?”
“The former,” Weisz said. “A circle of friends, some of them working in the ministries, stealing papers.”
“And passing ’em to who? If you don’t mind my asking. Not to us, surely, you couldn’t be that lucky.”
“I don’t know. It could be the Soviets, or even the Americans. She made a point of not telling me.”
“Even in bed.”
“Yes, even there.”
“Then good for her,” Brown said. “Bolsheviks, these people?”
“I don’t believe they are. Not the Stalinist kind, anyhow. It’s more acts of conscience, against an evil regime. And whoever they’ve found, to receive what they take, that’s likely by chance—somebody, some diplomat, maybe, they happened to know.”
“Or who contrived to know them, I daresay.”
“Probably. Somebody guessed right.”
“I’ll be frank with you, Weisz. If the Gestapo’s got her, there isn’t much we can do. She couldn’t possibly be a British citizen, could she.”
“No, she’s German. Hungarian on her father’s side.”
“Mm.” Brown turned away from Weisz and looked out his window. After a moment, he said, “We assume that it’s a committee of some sort, that runs your journal. Have you spoken with them?”
“I have. They’re prepared to do what you ask.”
“And you?”
“I’m in favor.”
“You’ll go?”
“Go along with the idea, yes.”
“Go along with the idea, he says. No, Weisz, go to Italy. Or did Lane not quite get around to telling you that part of it?”
You’re mad. But he was caught. “Actually, he didn’t. Is that part of the plan?”
“That is the bloody plan, boyo. It’s your hide, we’re after.”
Weisz took a breath. “If you’ll help me, I’ll do whatever you say.”
“Conditions?” Brown, his eyes cold, left the word hanging in the air.
Give the right answer. Weisz felt a muscle tick at the corner of his eye. “It isn’t a condition, but…”
“Do you know what you’re asking? What you’re after is an operation, do you have any idea what that entails? It ain’t ‘Good old Weisz, let’s just hop over to Berlin and snatch his chickadee from the Nazis.’ There will have to be meetings about this, in London, and if, for some absurd reason, we choose to even try, you’ll be ours. Henceforth. Like that word? I quite like it, myself. It tells a story.”
“Done,” Weisz said.
Under his breath, Brown mumbled, “Bloody nuisance.” Then, to Weisz: “Very well, write this down.” He waited while Weisz retrieved pen and pad. “What I’ll want from you, today, in your handwriting, is everything you know about her. Her name, maiden name, if she’s been married. A very precise physical description—height, weight, what she wears, how she does her hair. And every photograph you have, and I mean every photograph. Her addresses, all of ’em, where she lives, where she works, and the telephone numbers. Where she shops, if you know, and when she shops. Where she goes to dinner, or lunch, the names of servants, and the names of any friends she’s mentioned, and their addresses. Her parents, who they are, where they live. And some phrase that’s private between the two of you, ‘my apple dumpling,’ that sort of thing.”
“I don’t have any photographs.”
“No, of course you wouldn’t.”
“Should I give it to Kolb, tonight?”
“No, write ‘Mrs. Day’ on the outside of an envelope and leave it at the desk of the Bristol. Before noon, is that clear?”
“It will be there.”
Brown, much persecuted by life’s sudden surprises, shook his head. Then, resignation in his voice, said, “Andrew.”
The driver knew what that meant, slid the taxi through traffic to the curb, then stopped. Brown leaned across Weisz and opened his door. “We’ll let you know,” he said. “And, meanwhile, best finish up your work with Ferrara.”
Weisz headed for the office, anxious to write what Brown had requested, and equally anxious to have a look at the previous night’s dispatches, but there was nothing further on the Berlin spy ring. For a moment, he had himself persuaded that this was a reasonable pretext for a call to Eric Wolf, then acknowledged it wasn’t, unless Delahanty asked. Delahanty did not ask, though Weisz mentioned it. Instead, Delahanty told him he had to be on the one o’clock train to Orléans, where the president of a bank had left town with his seventeen-year-old girlfriend and a substantial portion of his depositors’ money. Off to Tahiti, it was rumored, and not, as he’d announced at the bank, to a meeting in Brussels. Weisz worked hard for an hour, writing down everything he knew about Christa’s life, then, on his way back to the Dauphine to pack his valise, he stopped at the Bristol.
When Weisz returned to Paris, at midday on the ninth, there was trouble at the office. “Please go immediately to see Monsieur Delahanty,” the secretary said, a malicious gleam in her eye. She’d long suspected that Weisz was involved in some sort of monkey business, now it looked like she’d been right and he was going to get his comeuppance.
But she was wrong. Weisz sat in the visitor’s chair, across from Delahanty, who stood and closed his office door, then winked at him. “I did have some doubts about you, laddie,” he said, returning to his desk, “but now it’s all cleared up.”
Weisz was mystified.
“No, no, don’t say a word, you don’t have to. You can’t blame me, can you? All this running off, here and there. I asked myself, what the hell’s going on with him? Emigrés always up to something, the way the wo
rld sees it, but work has to come first. And I’m not saying it hasn’t, almost always, since you started here. You’ve been faithful and true, on time, on the story, and no nonsense with the expense reports. But then, well, I didn’t know what was going on.”
“And now you do?”
“From on high, laddie, as high as it gets. Sir Roderick and his crowd, well, if they value anything, they value patriotism, the old roar of the old British lion. Now I know you won’t take advantage of this, because I do need you, got to have the stories, every day, or there’s no bureau, but, if you have to, well, disappear, now and then, just let me know. For God’s sake don’t just vanish on me, but a word will suffice. We’re proud of you, Carlo. Now get out of here and write me a follow-up on your filing from Orléans, that naughty banker and his naughty girlfriend. We’ve got her photo, from the local rag, it’s on your desk. Smoldering little thing she is, in a confirmation gown, no less, with a fooking bouquet in her hot little hand. Go to it, laddie. Tahiti. Gauguin! Sarongs!”
Weisz stood up to leave, then, as he opened the door, Delahanty said, “And, as for this other business, I won’t mention it again. Except to say good luck, and be careful.”
Somewhere, Weisz thought, in the backstage apparatus of his life, someone had turned a wheel.
•
10 June, 9:50 P.M., Hotel Tournon.
It’s something I never want to go through again, but it made me the brother of every soul in Europe who looks out at the world through barbed wire, and there are thousands of them, no matter how much their governments try to deny it. It was my good fortune that I had friends, who secured my release, then helped me to start life anew in the city where I’m writing this. It’s a good city, a free city, where people value their freedom, and all I would wish for you, for people everywhere in Europe, everywhere in the world, is that they can, some day, share this precious freedom.
It won’t be easy. The tyrants are strong, and grow stronger every day. But it will happen, believe me it will. And, whatever you have to do, whatever you may turn to, I will be there beside you. Or someone like me—there are more of us than you might think, we are just down the street, or in the next town, prepared to fight for what we believe in. We fought for Spain, and you know what happened there, we lost the war. But we haven’t lost hope, and, when the next fight comes, we will be there. And, as for me personally, I won’t give up. I will remain, as I have been these many years, a soldier for freedom.
Weisz lit a cigarette and leaned back in the chair. Ferrara came around behind him and read the text over his shoulder. “I like it,” he said. “So, we’re finished?”
“They’ll want changes,” Weisz said. “But they’ve been reading the pages every night, so I’d say it’s pretty much what they’re after.”
Ferrara patted him on the shoulder. “Never thought I’d write a book.”
“Well, now you have.”
“We should have a drink, to celebrate.”
“Maybe we will, when Kolb shows up.”
Ferrara looked at his watch, it was new, and gold, and very fancy. “He usually comes at eleven.”
They went downstairs to the café, below street level, at one time the cellar of the Tournon. Inside, it was dark and almost deserted, with only one customer, half a glass of wine at his elbow, writing on sheets of yellow paper. “He’s always here,” Ferrara said. They ordered brandies at the bar and sat at one of the battered tables, the wood stained, and scarred by cigarette burns.
“What will you do, now that the book’s finished?” Weisz said.
“Hard to say. They want me to go on a speaking tour, after the book comes out. To England, maybe America.”
“That’s not unusual, for a book like this.”
“Can I tell you the truth, Carlo? Will you keep a secret?”
“Go ahead. I don’t tell them everything.”
“I’m not going to do it.”
“No?”
“I don’t want to be their toy soldier. I’m not like that.”
“No, but it’s a good cause.”
“Sure it is, but not for me. Trying to read a speech, for some church group…”
“What then?”
“Irina and I are going away. Her parents are émigrés, in Belgrade, we can go there, she says.”
“Brown doesn’t care for her, I guess you know that.”
“She’s my life. We make love all night.”
“Well, they won’t like it.”
“We’re just going to slip away. I’m not going to England. If there’s a war, I’ll go to Italy, and do my fighting there, in the mountains.”
Weisz promised not to tell Kolb, or Brown, and when he wished Ferrara well, meant it. They drank for a time, then, just before eleven, returned to the smoky room. That night, Kolb was prompt. When he’d read over the ending, he said, “Fine words. Very inspiring.”
“You’ll let me know,” Weisz said, “about any changes.”
“They’re really in a hurry now, I don’t know what’s gotten into them, but I doubt they’ll take much more of your time.” Then his voice turned confidential and he said, “Would you step outside for a moment?”
In the hallway, Kolb said, “Mr. Brown asked me to tell you that we have news about your friend, from our people in Berlin. She’s not in custody, yet. For the moment, they’re watching her. Closely. Sounds to me like our people kept their distance, but the surveillance is in place—they know what it looks like. So, keep away from her, and don’t try to use the telephone.” He paused, then said, concern in his voice, “I hope she knows what she’s doing.”
For a moment, Weisz couldn’t speak. Finally, he managed to say, “Thank you.”
“She’s in danger, Weisz, you’d better be aware of that. And she won’t be safe until she can find a way to get out of there.”
For the next few days, silence. He went up to Le Havre for a Reuters assignment, did what he had to do, then returned. Every time the office telephone rang, every evening when he stopped at the desk of the Dauphine, hope rose inside him, then evaporated. All he could do was wait, and he’d never realized how poorly he did that. He spent his days, and particularly his nights, preoccupied with Christa, with Brown, with going to Italy—back and forth, and nothing he could do about any of it.
Then, late on the morning of the fourteenth, Pompon telephoned. Weisz was to come to the Sûreté at three-thirty that afternoon. So, once again Room 10. This time, however, no Pompon, only Guerin. “Inspector Pompon is gathering the dossiers,” he explained. “But, while we’re waiting, there is one thing we have to clear up. You’ve withheld the names of your editorial committee, and we respect that, it’s an honorable instinct, but now, in order to go forward with the investigation, we’ll need to interview them, to help us with identification. It is in their interest, Monsieur Weisz, for their safety as well as yours.” He slid a tablet and pencil over to Weisz. “Please,” he said.
Weisz wrote down the names of Véronique and Elena, and added the address of the gallery, and Elena’s room. “They’re the ones who’ve been in contact,” Weisz said, then explained that Véronique had nothing to do with Liberazione.
Pompon showed up a few minutes later, with dossiers and a heavy manila envelope. “We won’t keep you too long today, we simply want you to look at some photographs. Take your time, study the faces, and let us know if you recognize any of them.”
He took an eight-by-ten print from the envelope and handed it to Weisz. Nobody he’d ever seen. A pale man, about forty, sturdily built, with close-cropped hair, photographed in profile as he walked down a street, the shot taken from some distance away. As Weisz studied the photograph, he saw, at the extreme left of the image, the doorway of 62, boulevard de Strasbourg.
“Recognize him?” Pompon said.
“No, I’ve never seen him.”
“Maybe in passing,” Guerin said. “On a street somewhere. In the Métro?”
Weisz tried, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing
the man. Was he the one they especially wanted? “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him,” Weisz said.
“And her?” Pompon said.
An attractive woman, walking past a stall at a street market. She wore a stylish suit and a hat with a brim that shadowed one side of her face. She’d been caught in full stride, likely walking quickly, her expression absorbed and determined. On her left hand, a wedding ring. The face of the enemy. But she seemed so commonplace, in the midstream of whatever life she lived, which simply happened to include employment by the Italian secret police, whose job it was to destroy certain people.
“Don’t recognize her,” Weisz said.
“And this fellow?”
Not a clandestine photograph this time, but a mug shot; front face, and profile, with an identification number across the chest, below the name Jozef Vadic. Young and brutal, Weisz thought. A killer. Defiance glowed in his eyes—the flics could take his picture all they wanted, he would do as he liked, because it was the right thing to do.
“Never saw him,” Weisz said. “Better that I haven’t, I’d say.”
“True,” Guerin said.
Waiting for the next photograph, Weisz thought, where is the man who tried to enter my room at the Dauphine?
“And him?” Pompon said.
Weisz knew who this was. Pitted face, Errol Flynn mustache, though, from this angle, he could see no feather in the hatband. He’d been photographed sitting on a chair in a park, legs crossed, very much at ease, hands folded in his lap. Waiting, Weisz thought, for someone to come out of a building or a restaurant. And good at waiting, daydreaming, maybe, about something he liked. And—he recalled Véronique’s words—there was a certain set to his face that could well be described as “smug, and sly.”
“I believe he’s the man who interrogated my friend, who owns the art gallery,” Weisz said.
