Alan Furst - Red Gold

“I mean still, after all these years?”

“Yes, still. Nothing ever changes here, Jean-Claude.”

“All right. I’ll go this morning.”

“Jean-Claude?”

“Yes?”

“If you can get Swiss francs…”

He didn’t do as well as he’d hoped-everybody selling, nobody buying. The jeweler was apologetic; his eyes were, at least. After all, there wasn’t much to say: old wealth was heavy on the market, from Jews, from fugitives of all kinds, trying to find a way out of the country. And then, there were others; a senior German officer, coming out the door as Casson entered, gave him an extremely polite little bow.

In the event, the jeweler agreed to pay in Swiss francs. Casson took some of them to the back room of an umbrella shop on the rue de la Paix-used traditionally by barmen and waiters at the hotels frequented by tourists-and converted them into French Occupation francs. The rate was so good it surprised him. “Market’s going up,” the woman said. “We’ll take all you have.”

He returned to Marie-Claire’s, where they spent the day together, and, also, the night, why not. Old love, as good as it ever was, maybe a little better. “I love doing this with you,” she said, lying next to him. “I always did.” They smoked together in the dawn, really not much to say, odd how happy some things in life made you.

He left the apartment at midmorning. Fine weather-a springtime wind, brilliant, sunny light-a good day to start a new life. He would find a better hotel, move his few things. He stopped for a newspaper, found a cafe, and ordered coffee. “Real, if you have it.”

Then he looked at the news. ITALIAN FREIGHTER SABOTAGED. SAN LORENZO EXPLODES AT THE DOCK IN NICE HARBOR. RESISTANCE TERRORISTS SUSPECTED IN DAWN ATTACK. EIGHT DEAD, MANY INJURED.

He went first to the Benoit, but there was no postcard. Next he headed for de la Barre’s apartment, then changed his mind and walked down the Champs-Elysees to the travel agency. “I’m here to see Natalie,” he told the woman at the reception. She showed him to a desk in a small room, and Natalie appeared a moment later. “I’m Helene’s friend,” he explained.

“Oh,” she said. “I couldn’t imagine who Monsieur Duval was.”

“Is she alive?”

For a moment, she hesitated.

“I know where she was going,” he said. “She told me she would send you a postcard when she got to Algiers.”

“She was on the ship that burned,” Natalie said.

“Is she all right?”

“Yes. She telephoned, from Nice. She was afraid to speak openly, but she let me know she’d survived-‘a bad accident.’ ”

“Did she say anything about trying again?”

“Yes, in a way. She said she’d be staying in Nice for another two or three days. Then she told me I mustn’t worry, that she would see me soon and tell me the whole story.”

“See you in Paris?”

“That’s why she called. She may have to stay with me if her land-lady won’t let her have the room.”

“You said she could?”

“Of course. And she’ll be coming back to work.”

“Not here.”

“Yes.”

“They’ll let her do that? She’s been away three weeks.”

“Well, they think she’s been in Strasbourg-a family emergency. And then, the big surprise, Victorine’s been a saint. Helene is welcome to her old job. No problem.”

Naturally, Casson thought. A thousand francs anytime she felt like it-no problem.

“At least she’s not hurt,” Casson said.

“Thank heaven. She’ll be here by the end of the week, she wasn’t sure exactly when.”

“I’ll come by in a day or so and leave a phone number,” Casson said. “Tell her to call me as soon as she can.”

A quiet evening on the rue Petrelle; closed shops, buildings deserted. Ivanic and Serra watched the windows for a time, but the only lights were on the second floor. The third floor, where Alexander Kovar used a friend’s office, was dark.

“What does he do up there?” Serra said.

“Who knows? Writes books, or pamphlets.”

“In the dark?”

“Why not? Perhaps it suits him.”

“A friend of mine used to read his book. In Spain.”

“I don’t know it,” Ivanic said. Why make it personal, he thought. Juron had told them what to do. And Weiss had been very specific about how he wanted it done. That was all Ivanic needed. He checked the time, 8:30. No cars about, no people. “Let’s get it over with,” he said.

Ivanic used a skeleton key to open the simple lock on the building door. As they entered, they could hear music, a scratchy old record of a single piano, the melody slow and sad. It grew louder as they climbed the stairs and came, they discovered, from the Madame Tauron School of Ballet on the second floor.

A woman’s voice-somehow hopeful and weary at the same time-rose sharply above the piano. “Allons-Bernadette? This is the afternoon of a faun, my dear, yes, that’s right, so light, so delicate…”

Ivanic gestured up the staircase, took the automatic from his leather coat, worked the slide.

“Won’t they hear it, from upstairs?” Serra said.

“They’ll stop what they’re doing, for a moment,” Ivanic said. “Then they’ll pretend it didn’t happen.”

They climbed to the third floor, turned left, walked slowly and silently to the office at the end of the hall, then stood on either side of the door. Serra took a revolver from his belt. He held it casually, like a familiar tool.

Very carefully, Ivanic leaned close to the pebbled glass window in the upper half of the door. But the music from the floor below made it hard to hear the small noises people make when they are alone, the sound of a chair, or a newspaper. He signaled to Serra that he couldn’t hear, then pointed to a place just below the keyhole.

“Typewriter?” Serra mouthed the word.

Ivanic shook his head.

Serra stood in front of the door, raised his leg. Ivanic gestured with his gun, Serra drove his foot against the door. A second time, a third, the glass cracked and the door flew open.

Ivanic went through the door in a crouch, turned left, then right. Nobody. Serra came in behind him. “Easy does it,” Ivanic said. “He’s not here.”

They searched the dark office, there were cigarette stubs in the ashtray, a typewriter, a few pages of scribbled notes, but no Kovar.

“Where could he go?” Serra said.

They had seen him enter the building at 7:30. As far as they knew, there was only the single door to the street, and they had watched that for an hour. Ivanic rested a finger on the receiver of a telephone on the desk. “Warned,” he said. “Otherwise, he would either be here, or he would have gone out the door to the street.”

“Still in the building?”

“He could be.” Ivanic thought it over. In the ballet studio? In some other office? Hopeless, he thought. “We can look on the roof,” he said.

They climbed the stairs to the roof, looked over the parapet into the empty street. Went down to the fifth floor, walked the endless labyrinth of hallways with titles lettered on the glass door panels; importers, detectives, matchmakers. Then, to be able to report that they’d done it, they searched all the other floors.

“The ballet studio?” Serra said.

Ivanic considered it. “Better not,” he said. “We couldn’t do it there, even if we did find him.” He checked his watch. “We’re supposed to be out of here by 9:20, we’ll just go see Weiss and tell him what happened.”

“Perhaps he went to another office.”

“Maybe. Let Weiss worry about it.”

Kovar waited until 10:20 before he left the building.

He’d been hard at work at 8:15, when the telephone rang. This had never happened before-wrong number, he thought. They’ll hang up. He let it go; ten, eleven, twelve rings. What if they heard it downstairs? He picked up the receiver, a man’s voice said “Kovar.”