Alan Furst: Red Gold

“Oh, maybe three hundred francs a kilo-but not for the quantity we’ve got. Tonight we’ll try to sell a hundred kilos.”

“So, two fifty?”

“Tiens!” Lazenac said with a grin-wouldn’t that be nice.

The train stopped at Abbesses, idling for a time in the empty station. Casson smoothed his lapels, trying to make them lie flat. His face burned like fire, he’d shaved close, using a three-month-old razor blade. Cleaned his shoes with a rag, borrowed a tie from the old man down the hall, and that was about the best he could do. At least, he thought, looking down at his feet, his socks were still in decent shape. It was the socks that went first. A whore he knew said she only took customers whose socks were in good condition. One of Casson’s fellow lodgers had shown him how he used a pen to color in the skin that showed white in the holes.

Lazenac dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry too much,” he said, as though reading Casson’s thoughts. “It’s all in your face-who you are.”

“Once upon a time, maybe, but now…”

Lazenac smiled, only one side of it really worked. “No,” he said, “life’s not like that.”

10:30 in the evening in the rue Hennequin. Some restaurants lived secret lives, others spread out into their streets. This was the second kind; a green-and-gold facade, a line of handsome automobiles. A Horch, a Lancia Aprilia. In the back seat of an open sedan, a redhead with a dead fox around her neck was smoking like a movie star. On the street: German officers in shiny leather, boots and belts and straps; their girlfriends, wearing plenty of rouge and eye shadow and black stockings; and the strange tidal debris-the Count of Somewhere, Somebody the art dealer-that flowed into conquered cities.

“We go around the back,” Lazenac said.

Down the alley the door to the kitchen was propped open with a chair. The air was thick with clouds of garlicky steam, frying fat, old grease, and lye soap. Lazenac spoke to one of the cooks and a waiter appeared a moment later. “Oh, it’s you,” he said to Lazenac. “You have something for us?”

“Sugar,” Casson said. “As much as you like.”

Their eyes met, the waiter stared at him.

“The patron around?” Casson said.

“I’m the one you see.”

“Maybe we’ll come back when he’s around.”

“Don’t be smart.”

“Thursday? How would that be?”

“Now look-”

“Au revoir.”

It took a minute for the waiter to run off and get the owner. A true beauf, Casson thought-from beau-frere, brother-in-law. Stocky and pink and mean. He framed himself in the doorway and put his hands on his hips. “So, what’s the big problem?”

“No problem,” Casson said. “What’s the price for sugar tonight?”

“I don’t know. What do you want?”

“Lebec is offering two fifty. And next week we’ll have butter.”

“Butter.”

“Yes.”

“How much sugar?”

“A hundred kilos.”

“Hmm. That’s, ah, twenty-five thousand francs.”

“That’s what Lebec said.”

“Then go see Lebec.”

“If you like.”

“No, wait a minute, I’m only kidding. Save yourself the Metro ticket-I’ll give you twenty-two five for the whole thing. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

“How about twenty-three. C’mon, be a good guy.”

“You’re taking advantage of my good nature, you know.”

“I know. But, what the hell.”

“All right. Where is it?”

“Out in front.”

“Have them bring it around.”

Le Diable Vert. Midnight.

Twelve hundred francs!

In times gone by he’d spent more than that on a suit, but life changed, didn’t it, and by moonlight mathematics he was richer than he’d ever been. And, oddly enough, people-some people anyhow-seemed to sense it. Certainly the working girls knew-smiles, whistles, coats thrown open from every doorway on the rue Moncey-but it was their vocation to see into men’s souls and on the way they would naturally stop to count what was in their pockets.

Le Diable Vert.

He’d always liked a good hellhole and it was surely that. A tiny bistro, set a half-story below the street, through the open door of which he could see feet hurrying through the rain. Diable Vert-a leering green devil with a pitchfork and a splendid tail on a sign that swung on its chains and creaked in the wind. Ten tables, brick floor cured in wine, a sign by the cash register had a photograph of a funeral and the legend LE CREDIT EST MORT. And, packed in, wall-to-wall, what seemed like the whole neighborhood-laughing, shouting, arguing, and knocking back half-liters in a dense fog of cigarette smoke.

Twelve hundred francs.

So the death of credit was no problem for Casson-not tonight. Tonight he was the local sultan. Lazenac had laid it all out, plainer than any of the merchant bankers Casson used to deal with in the movie business. The twenty-three thousand francs was to be split with the railwaymen, the remainder shared out by Lazenac and his crew. The man who drove the camionette received a share, and so did his van, that was traditional. Then there was a handsome slice carved out for a certain Monsieur X, nameless but clearly important.

“Marin, may I join you?”

It was a man named Bruc. Casson wasn’t sure exactly what he did, but he worked nights and headed for the Metro wearing green rubber boots.

“Please,” Casson said.

Bruc took the empty chair, Casson filled his glass and offered him a packet of Gauloises Bleues, a luxury in that part of town. Bruc drew a cigarette from the pack with care, holding it in his mouth with thumb and forefinger while Casson struck a match and lit it for him. “Thank you very much, Marin,” he said formally.

The crowd surged around them. Two girls wearing the neighborhood dance-hall uniform-satin shirts, suspenders holding up wool trousers, and tweed workers’ caps-gave Casson a glance over the shoulder.

“My night off,” Bruc said. “I like to be where people are.”

“What’s your work?” Casson asked.

“I’m part of the crew on a pumper truck. Out in the old quarters on the edge of the city. We pump out the cesspools.”

“I thought it all went in the sewers.”

“No. Not out there it doesn’t. Some nights we do apartment houses, some nights the office buildings. They take a lot longer.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes, a lot longer.”

Bruc took a sip of wine and a long drag on his Gauloise. A man had jumped up on a table and started to sing, people were clapping to keep time.

“Why does it take longer?” Casson said.

“Well, the cesspools are the same size, but the stuff in the office buildings is harder, really hell to pump out.”

Casson stared. A peculiarity of office life?

The owner worked his way through the crowd, a full chopine in his hand. He poured the last of the old flask into the two glasses. “You’ll take a little more?” he asked Casson.

“Yes,” Casson said. “Certainly we will.”

“Generous of you,” Bruc said.

“Monsieur Bruc,” Casson said. “How is it different?”

“The water, monsieur. In the apartment buildings they are forever cooking and cleaning and washing the laundry.”

Casson wandered out the back door to a courtyard, unbuttoned his fly, and stood over an open drain. Drinking all day, he thought. Well, so what? Above him, a fine starry night; with the city under a blackout the sky had returned. Autumn heaven-les Poissons up there somewhere, his birth sign. Somebody had once tried to show it to him, but all he could see were drifts of stars.

It was late. Up in Passy, his former life went on. Marie-Claire and Bruno, the Arnauds and the Pichards, would be chattering over after-dinner drinks. Good talk, witty and dry-life was irony. No doubt they would be talking about the affreux-dreadful-Germans. Not so affreux, of course, that one refused to get rich off them. Maybe they talked about the war, maybe not. Like any other inconvenience, it would go away when it was ready. In the meantime, x was broke, y was sleeping with z. Then, a glance at a watch, kisses all around, and home they’d go. Home, where they hung their clothes on quilted hangers in closets with mirrored doors. Home, to bed.