Alan Furst - Kingdom of Shadows

“In-house Cassandre,” Courtmain said.

The art was sumptuous, suggesting the tropics. Backgrounds in renaissance ochres and chrome yellows, with figures-mostly tigers and palm trees-in a span of Venetian reds.

“Handsome,” Morath said, impressed.

Courtmain agreed. “Too bad about the name,” he said. He made a label in the air with his thumb and index finger. “Palmier,” he suggested, meaning palm tree. “Cacao fin!”

“Tigre?” Morath said.

Mary Day had a very impish smile. “Tigresse,” she said.

Courtmain nodded. He took an artist’s chalk from a cup on the desk and stood to one side of the drawings. “That’s the name,” he said. “With this tree,” it curved gently, with three fronds on top, “and this tiger.” A front view. The animal sat on its haunches, revealing a broad expanse of white chest.

Morath was excited. “Do you think they’ll do it?”

“Not in a thousand years.”

He was at Cara’s when the telephone rang, three-thirty in the morning. He rolled out of bed, managed to fumble the receiver free of the cradle. “Yes?”

“It’s Wolfi.” Szubl was almost whispering.

“What is it?”

“You better go to the apartment. There’s big trouble.”

“I’ll be there,” Morath said, and hung up the phone.

What to wear?

“Nicky?”

He’d already put on a shirt and was trying to knot his tie. “I have to go out.”

“Now?”

“Yes?”

“What’s going on?”

“A friend in trouble.”

After a silence, “Oh.”

He buttoned his pants, shrugged a jacket on, forced his feet into his shoes while smoothing his hair back with his hands.

“What friend?” Now the note was in her voice.

“A Hungarian man, Cara. Nobody you know.”

Then he was out the door.

The streets were deserted. He walked quickly toward the Metro at Pont d’ Alma. The trains had stopped running two hours earlier, but there was a taxi parked by the entrance. “Rue Mogador,” Morath told the driver. “Just around the corner from the Galeries.”

The street door had been left open. Morath stood at the foot of the staircase and peered up into the gloom. Thirty seconds, nothing happened, then, just as he started up the stairs, he heard the click of a closing door, somewhere above him. Trying not to make a noise. Again he waited, then started to climb.

On the first floor landing, he stopped again. “Szubl?” He said it in a low voice-not a whisper, just barely loud enough to be heard on the floor above.

No answer.

He held his breath. He thought he could hear light snoring, a creak, then another. Normal for a building at four in the morning. Again he climbed, slowly, standing for a moment on every step. Halfway up, he touched something sticky on the wall. What was that ? Too dark to see, he swore and rubbed his fingers against his trousers.

On the third floor, he went to the end of the hall and stood in front of the door. The smell was not at all strong-not yet-but Morath had fought in the war and knew exactly what it was. The woman. His heart sank. He had known this would happen. Somehow, mysteriously, he’d known it. And he would settle with whoever had done it. Von Schleben, somebody else, it didn’t matter. His blood was racing, he told himself to calm down.

Or, maybe, Szubl. No, why would anyone bother.

He put his index finger on the door and pushed. It swung open. He could see the couch, the bed, a dresser he didn’t remember. He smelled paint, along with the other smell, stronger now, and the burnt, bittersweet odor of a weapon fired in a small room.

He stepped inside. Now he could see the tiny stove and the table covered with oilcloth. At one end, a man was sitting in a chair, his legs spread wide, his head hanging, almost upside down, over the back, his arms dangling at his sides.

Morath lit a match. Boots and trousers of a German officer’s uniform. The man was wearing a white shirt and suspenders, his jacket hung carefully on the chair and now pinned in place by his head. A gray face, well puffed up, one eye open, one eye shut. The expression-and he had seen this before-one of sorrow mixed with petty irritation. The hole in the temple was small, the blood had dried to brown on the face and down the arm. Morath knelt, the Walther sidearm had dropped to the floor beneath the hand. On the table, the wallet. A note? No, not that he could see.

The match started to burn his fingers. Morath shook it out and lit another. He opened the wallet: a photograph of a wife and grown children, various Wehrmacht identity papers. Here was Oberst-Colonel-Albert Stieffen, attached to the German general staff at the Stahlheim barracks, who’d come to Paris and shot himself in the kitchen of Von Schleben’s love nest.

A soft tap at the door. Morath glanced at the pistol, then let it lay there. “Yes?”

Szubl came into the room. He was sweating, red-faced. “Christ,” he said.

“Where were you?”

“Over at the Gare Saint-Lazare. I used the phone, then I stood across the street and watched you come inside.”

“What happened?”

Szubl spread his hands apart, God only knows. “A man called, about two-thirty in the morning. Told me to come over here and take care of things.”

” ‘Take care of things.’ “

“Yes. A German, speaking German.”

“Meaning, it happened here, so it’s our problem.” Morath looked at his watch, it was almost five.

“Something like that.”

They were silent for a time. Szubl shook his head, slow and ponderous. Morath exhaled, a sound of exasperation, ran his fingers through his hair, swore in Hungarian-mostly to do with fate, shitting pigs, saints’ blood-and lit a cigarette. “All right,” he said, more to himself than to Szubl. “So now it disappears.”

Szubl looked glum. “It will cost plenty, that kind of thing.”

Morath laughed and waved the problem away. “Don’t worry about that,” he said.

“Really? Well, then you’re in luck. I have a friend.”

“ Flic ? Undertaker?”

“Better. A desk man at the Grand Hotel.”

“Who is he?”

“One of us. From Debrecen, a long time ago. He was in a French prisoner-of-war camp in 1917, somehow managed to get himself to the local hospital. Long story short, he married the nurse. Then, after the war, he settled in Paris and worked in the hotels. So, about a year ago, he tells me a story. Seems there was a symphony conductor, a celebrity, staying in the luxury suite. One night, maybe two in the morning, the phone at the desk rings. It’s the maestro, he’s frantic. My friend rushes upstairs-the guy had a sailor in the room, the sailor died.”

“Awkward.”

“Yes, very. Anyhow, it was taken care of.”

Morath thought it over. “Go back to Saint-Lazare,” he said. “Call your friend.”

Szubl turned to leave.

“I’m sorry to put you through this, Wolfi. It’s Polanyi, and his …”

Szubl shrugged, adjusted his hat. “Don’t blame your uncle for intrigue, Nicholas. It’s like blaming a fox for killing a chicken.”

From Morath, a sour smile, Szubl wasn’t wrong. Although, he thought, “blaming” isn’t what’s usually done to a fox. The stairs creaked as Szubl went down, then Morath watched him through the window. The dawn was gray and humid, Szubl trudged along, head down, shoulders hunched.

The desk man was tall and handsome, dashing, with a cavalry mustache. He arrived at 6:30, wearing a red uniform with gold buttons. “Feeling better?” he said to the corpse.

“Two thousand francs,” Morath said. “All right?”