by Alan Furst
“So,” Stavros said, “Szarny has a bad case of nerves, he’s so cautious on the telephone that I sometimes can’t understand what the hell he’s talking about. He starts calling guns bicycles, ‘shipping the bicycles,’ good, I finally figure it out. Then the next time it’s lamps. I suppose he’s afraid somebody’s listening to his telephone, but, I mean, lamps? Skoda makes all kinds of things but lamps is one thing they don’t make. If somebody is listening to his phone, they’re laughing.
“You see, he needs the money but he’s scared, goes back and forth, not now, next week. No, not next week, he has to be in Berlin. So I went down there and met him in the bad part of Brno, in a bar by a factory. I was holding a French magazine, so he could identify me, but I don’t think he ever saw it, he took one look at me and his eyes got like this.” Stavros opened his eyes wide with horror and de Lyon and Ferrar laughed. Stavros had some actor in him. “Well, who the fuck did he expect, Shirley Temple?”
“What’s he worried about,” Ferrar said. “Something in particular? Or just scared of getting caught?”
“Everything. The sale has to be approved by various Czech ministries, though he thinks he can get that done. But, because of the Non-Intervention Treaty, there has to be a country other than Spain that’s supposedly buying the guns. But what he’s really worried about is the bribe.”
“How much does he want?”
“A hundred thousand dollars, in British gold sovereigns.”
“A lot,” de Lyon said, “but we always bribe when we have to.”
“He’s worried about where to keep it—he says he can’t keep it at home.”
“Has he heard that there are banks?” Ferrar said.
Stavros shrugged.
“Swiss banks?” de Lyon said.
Looking past Stavros’s shoulder, Ferrar saw that the girlfriends had tired of the ladies’ WC and were now seated at a table of eager young men. “I think you’d better see to your friends,” he said. Stavros turned halfway around, swore in Greek, and went off to retrieve his prizes.
“He’s Greek?” Ferrar said.
“Macedonian. He spent his teenage years fighting Bulgarian bandits. After that, being a gangster was easy.” De Lyon paused and said, “What do you think about this Szarny?”
“Blackmail,” Ferrar said. “He has to have the money in hand.”
“Yes, that’s the way I see it. For what doesn’t matter.”
Ferrar thought this over. “Maybe it doesn’t, but you’d be surprised at what sort of jack can jump out of the box when you open the lid. Suddenly, it does matter.”
Stavros was standing at the table where the strayed girlfriends had found refuge. But they wouldn’t be staying there. Ferrar really didn’t want to be involved in a nightclub brawl, but relaxed when he saw how Stavros was dealing with the problem. He had a big smile on his face, not quite a pleasant smile, but a big one. He had his arm around the shoulders of one of the eager young men, was now giving him an affectionate squeeze, and laughing. The young man’s face was flushed; he was obviously terrified. Stavros then shook the hand of one of the other young men, shook it enthusiastically, couldn’t bear to let go. Finally he did, then led his girlfriends back toward the table.
“Probably better,” de Lyon said, “to stay on Stavros’s good side.”
When Stavros returned to the table, he said to the blonde, “What a funny fellow, that … what was his name?”
The blonde was sulking, she’d been having a good time. “Something like, Clive.”
“Oh, Clive. He’s English?”
“Yes, he has some sort of title. He’s on holiday in Paris.”
“How nice for Clive.”
De Lyon saw that the private part of their conversation was over, and started talking about the weather. Stavros let him go on for a few minutes, then said, “We’re going to a party, let me know what you want to do—I think it’s better for you to take over now that I’ve found our man. If he is our man.”
When the trio was gone, de Lyon took a notepad and a stub of pencil from his pocket. He opened the notepad to a page with numbers and letters and used the pencil as a pointer so Ferrar could follow along as he read aloud. In the background, the band was now playing “September in the Rain.”
“Here’s what we have,” de Lyon said. “We’re trying to buy the Skoda A3 thirty-seven-millimeter anti-tank gun. We’ll try to get fifty of them, Skoda charges about four thousand dollars apiece. Then we want thirty-six thousand shells, which will be around three hundred thousand dollars. To this we add a hundred thousand for the bribe, and then there’s the shipping. What do you think?”
“Very expensive, I had no idea.”
“A seller’s market. Since 1933, and German rearmament, the competition has driven up the price. Do you know what an anti-tank gun looks like?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one … maybe in a newsreel.”
“It’s a small cannon, the barrel is five feet long, half of it extended through an iron shield, and it moves on wheels with wooden spokes. It looks like something from the 1914 war, or earlier. But it works, fires twelve shells a minute and penetrates an inch and a half of plate armor at a thousand yards. Any questions?”
“No.”
“Now, the problem here is the bribe. If we can’t use a bank transfer, we’ll have to take the money down to Brno ourselves. Are you able to do that, Cristián?”
Ferrar thought about it, and at last answered. “I’m not sure I can, but I’ll try.”
At the Coudert office, the following morning, Ferrar met with George Barabee. They were still working on the Polanyi case, nominally a dispute over three vizsla dogs, but in fact a reach for power by a deceased shareholder’s son, who wanted a full share in the holding company that owned a private bank in Budapest. To do that, he would have to force his sister, who he hated, to give up her half share. Ferrar wondered aloud if they could negotiate with the male heir. “At the moment, we represent all the shareholders, but if the male heir insists on his right to freeze the operation of the company, we will represent the two uncles and the sister. And then, we’ll go to court.”
Barabee made notes as Ferrar spoke, nodding in agreement as he wrote. When Ferrar was done, Barabee said, “A good lawyer will usually counsel a client against litigation, so let’s sit down with the nephew and ask him if he will accept a settlement. And we can suggest, just to help him in the direction we want him to go, that being forced to defend himself in court could be a long and expensive ordeal. We can’t lean too hard, but there are family lawsuits in France that have gone on for years. Years and years. And then, we should point out to him that we’ll try to remove him from the holding company. ‘You’ve been a bad boy, junior, so no money for you. You’ll have to go to work.’ Now, Cristián, how do we go about suing him?”
“Under French law, he’s entitled to vote as a shareholder, he is not entitled to damage the corporation, the holding company. He is, in fact, obligated to act for the benefit of the corporation, he cannot simply abstain. And if he holds to his strategy of freezing the corporation, he is then guilty of what in French law is called ‘waste of corporate assets.’ ”
“You say ‘under French law.’ It’s my understanding that the nephew lives in Budapest. How do we sue him in France?”
“I’ll have to talk to Count Polanyi about that because we’ll need his cooperation. Junior, as you call him, will have to be induced to come to France, where he’ll be served with process. I don’t think we want to be involved with confidential agents—private detectives, that can become a nightmare very quickly. It’s the family who will have to do the work, and Polanyi will know how. He’s a diplomat at the Hungarian legation here, but there are rumors about his being involved with espionage. So, he’s just right for something like this.”
“Good, Cristián. Go ahead and contact Polanyi, tell him what we propose, and, if he agrees, you get in touch with junior, by telephone, and have a talk.”
Barabee
was done with the meeting, but Ferrar made no move to leave the office and Barabee said, “Is there something else?”
“There is,” Ferrar said, lighting a cigarette. He went on to explain about Castillo’s disappearance and probable death, Molina’s request, and his agreement to work with the Oficina Técnica as an unpaid, and unofficial, consultant. “What I had in mind,” Ferrar said, “was the occasional telephone call or meeting, all of it after work or on the weekend.”
“Generous of you, Cristián. They get good legal advice, which has to be helpful—arms purchasing must have substantial gray areas. Very gray, now that I think about it.”
“I will give them legal advice, if they ask for it, but that’s not what I’m there for.”
“You’re not?”
“I’m there to aid in buying armament.”
Barabee’s expression was a veiled, lawyerly version of you’re doing what?
“I’ve just begun working with one of the people in the arms office, the man who actually gets the job done. We talked for a long time last night and he wants my help with a particular purchase for the Republic, and that would mean I have to travel to Brno and spend a day or two there.”
Barabee was silent, absorbing what Ferrar had told him. As he did so, a certain look appeared on his face, not horror, but a quizzical expression that sometimes precedes it. At last he said, “Brno as in Skoda arms?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, you’re going to Brno to buy guns.”
“I intend to, if the office can spare me for a few days.”
“Official, legal gun buying?”
“Buying the guns will be legal, moving them to Spain is forbidden by the non-intervention pact, which Czechoslovakia has signed, so we have to persuade the Czech administration they’re going elsewhere.”
“I had no idea you knew anything about weapons.”
“I don’t.”
“Then why you?”
“They need to call on people, professional people like me, to help them in a time of crisis. The previous incumbent was a gynecologist.”
Barabee shook his head. “Cristián, lawyers are not supposed to engage in illegal activities. This could blow up in your face.”
“I know. For example, it’s illegal to use false documents, just as illegal as helping Jews in flight to cross borders with faked papers.”
From Barabee, a smile. “You’re a good lawyer, Cristián.” Then he picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser on the top of his desk. Finally he said, “Well, you’re lucky in one way. The lawyers in New York, and I mean the senior partners, are active in politics, they take that as a moral obligation. Fred Coudert, who runs the law firm, made great effort—speeches, private dinners, articles in journals, lawyers’ committees—to have the U.S. join the League of Nations and the world court in The Hague. As you know, it couldn’t be done. Isolationism, especially in Congress, killed any chance of membership. And the firm hasn’t changed, most of the partners are active in support of FDR, who would sell guns to Spain if he could. Truth is, ideologues are not popular on Rector Street; Hitler, Stalin, now Franco. So what you want to do, basically on your own time, may not be at all disagreeable to the partners, as long as the firm doesn’t get a black eye.”
“Thank you, George.”
“Don’t thank me yet, later today I have to call Fred, and then we’ll see. But when I talk to him I want to tell him that I have your agreement, your commitment, in one area; under no circumstances can you involve this law firm, or Coudert clients, in what you’re doing. Do you agree?”
“I do. You have my word.”
Barabee grew reflective, looked out the window for a time, then said, “You know I flew fighter planes for the American Expeditionary Force in 1917. I was a lot younger, but I believe I felt a lot like you do now. If you believe in something, you have to fight for it.”
By four-thirty that afternoon, Ferrar had his answer. Fred Coudert had agreed to let him do what he’d described to Barabee. “He said you could take time off, and do what you have to do. We’ll consider it a form of public service, the 1938 version of public service. He is also concerned, not so much about what you want to do—he knows we have to fight fascism—but about your personal safety. He likes you, Cristián, he always has.”
Now Ferrar could say thank you.
That evening Ferrar was to go out to Louveciennes to have dinner with his family. He had bought them a house there—they all liked the little town on the Seine, which had lively restaurants with dance floors built above the bank of the river. It wasn’t far, twenty miles from the city, and Parisians went out there in summer to have a good time. Boating. Picnics. It was a pretty place, the Impressionists had painted the very devil out of it, inspired by the long winding lanes between rows of poplars that led away from the town into the countryside. The house, built in 1830, was two stories high, with walls of gray stucco, tall shutters weathered gray at every window, and a roof of dark slate shingles. Ferrar liked the slate shingles, but the slate shingles didn’t like Ferrar. A cunning, spiteful house it was, constantly needing money for repairs. The shingles cracked, the cellar flooded, Ferrar paid.
He left the apartment at six-thirty. At the foot of the stairway was a miniature lobby where the tenants had their mailboxes; there were four beside Ferrar’s, and one for the concierge. As Ferrar came down the last steps, he saw a woman wearing a toggle coat and a soft, peaked cap, a fashionable version of the caps that workers actually wore. She was bent over, using the light of a match to peer at the names on the mailboxes, and when Ferrar appeared she straightened up and blew out the match. Thus Ferrar had only the briefest look at her face in the dark lobby.
“May I help you, madame?” he said.
“I am looking for a Monsieur Leblanc.”
“I’m sorry, madame, there is no one by that name who lives here.”
She blew the little puff of air which served as a sound of frustration for French women. “I must have the wrong address,” she said. “Anyhow, thank you, monsieur.” And then she was out the door.
Ferrar caught a taxi for the ride to Louveciennes, and asked the driver to stop at the Spanish pastry shop next to what was known as “the Spanish church” up on the rue de la Pompe in the Sixteenth, itself fancy, but nothing compared to the luxurious enclave called Passy. At one time, pastry in Spain had been baked and sold at convents, so the names of the little treats came from those days. Ferrar bought huesos de santo, saints’ bones; tetas de novicias, novice nuns’ breasts; and suspiros de monja, nuns’ sighs. All were soft and thick, and liberally dusted with granulated sugar. Spaniards weren’t alone in this. French patisseries offered la religieuse, the nun, a large, chocolate-capped puff pastry on the bottom, with a smaller version in the middle, and a little one on top, for the head. Or you could just buy a dozen of the little ones, known as pets-de-nonne, nun farts. The young girl behind the counter wrapped the pastries artfully, in pink paper folded into a triangle, then tied with a ribbon which was looped at the end so you could carry the package with one finger.
The family was waiting for him at the house in Louveciennes. His two brothers had long ago emigrated to South America, so the house was occupied by his mother and father, his pious sister Caridad, the spinster cousin who’d been taken in years ago and had been part of the family ever since, and his grandmother, Abuela. She was seventy-seven, stood straight as a rod, wore her ample white hair twisted into a braid, then wound into a bun, and had Ferrar’s very own deep green eyes. As they drank a glass of sherry before dinner, Abuela came over and sat next to him on the couch. “So, Cristián, dear one, what happens with you these days?”
“Life goes on, Abuela. I work hard, and enjoy myself when I can.”
“Nothing new, then, dear one?”
“Not much, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, very well, I simply wondered …”
She was, when it came to her grandson, close to psychic, and had sensed he was up to something. She patted his hand,
then let her hand rest atop his. “I worry too much about you,” she said, “in these bad times.”
Two years earlier, when the war started and Ferrar had considered joining up, she had accepted, seemed to accept, what he wanted to do. Later, when he realized that he couldn’t abandon his family to poverty, she’d taken him aside and said, “Dear one, listen to me, do not be tempted by the war, do not give up your life to this bullshit.”
There was plenty to eat; lentil soup, a céleri rémoulade—shreds of celeriac root swimming in handmade mayonnaise—pork cutlets, and then pastry. Eating his pastry with caution lest the granulated sugar sprinkle his tie, Ferrar’s father said, “Things are looking up, Cristián. The railroad bonds continue to pay, and I have managed to purchase quite a valuable stamp. From Togo, easily worth four times what I paid for it.” Three days a week, he took the train into Paris and spent hours at the stamp market on the avenue Marigny, hunting for bargains and gossiping with other collectors and the stamp dealers. This was as much of a job as he had and, though he pretended to be content with his life, it hurt him deeply that he could not support his family. Yes, there were South American railroad bonds, inherited years earlier from a wealthy relative, which paid a small amount quarterly. Not enough to live on, not nearly, but helpful at the end of the month when funds ran low.
After coffee, Ferrar’s sister Caridad, gold cross around her neck, led him upstairs to her tiny room, where a crack ran diagonally across one corner of the ceiling. “This poor house …,” she said. “I love it so but, as you see …”
Ferrar smoothed her hair and said, “Do not worry, Caridad, tell Abuela I said to call someone who can fix it.”
And, it turned out, the spinster cousin, who knitted the family’s winter sweaters, needed new eyeglasses.
None of this mattered to Ferrar, the visit had warmed his heart. And he stared out the taxi window on the way back to Paris and wondered if he’d been foolish to take on his new work.
