Alan Furst - Red Gold

The voice was measured, and without emotion.

It was a voice he didn’t recognize, certainly not Somet. It told him to leave the office immediately, to go to Room 408, the door would be unlocked. He was told to stay there until 10:00 P.M. Told he should not return to the office, told he should find a new place to live, not in Melun. “Kovar,” the voice said, “do you understand?”

He said “Yes,” the connection broke, the dial tone hummed. On the door of Room 408 it said JOUVET, below that, PROMOTIONS EX-TRAORDINAIRES. Inside, there were photos and press clippings on the wall. Later, he heard footsteps in the corridor, then saw a shadow on the glass. It paused a moment, then moved away.

Casson tried one hotel, then another, then a third. Hotel du Commerce, on the avenue Daumesnil, behind the Gare de Lyon. He was getting rather good at it now, he thought. A particular combination of seediness, anonymity, and old age-you had to develop a taste for it. Perfect-nobody would ever stay here. Except that every room was taken. He had to wait a day to get in.

4 March, a spring gale; rain blown sideways, the window rattled all night. Casson stayed awake until dawn, reading battered mysteries from the stalls on the Seine. He’d bought a radio, it crackled and hissed, but he could listen to piano concertos, sometimes jazz. A new life. Monsieur Marin, of the Hotel du Commerce, went out only rarely..

The next morning he walked to the railroad station, called Natalie and told her where Helene could find him. Then-finishing up old business-he tried the contact number for the SR. As he’d expected, the phone was not answered. Just to make sure, he dialed a second time, but he knew what would happen.

Which left him with one last telephone call, and that would be that.

But the liaison girl at the FTP contact number wanted him to meet her at a newsstand in an hour. Twenty years old, he guessed when he saw her, maybe younger. Earnest and intense, prepared to die to change the world. And, Casson thought, it would probably turn out that way. “I am called Emilie,” she said.

They walked through the 12th, up to Bastille, then into the dance-hall area around the rue de Lappe. Entered a nightclub by a cellar door at the bottom of a flight of steps. Strange in midmorning, canvas flats on a tiny stage, scenes of la vie parisienne: Eiffel Towers, flics blowing whistles, their cheeks puffed out.

Weiss was waiting for him at a table in the back.

“The way it looks right now,” Casson said, “I don’t think I can be of further use to you.”

“No? Does that mean that Vichy doesn’t want to talk to us?”

“Not through me.”

“Is this final?”

“Nothing’s final,” Casson said. “But that’s the way it is right now.”

“Was it what we asked? To let our people out of prison?”

Casson shook his head. “I was wondering,” he said, “what became of Sylvie?”

Weiss didn’t answer immediately. “You can contact us through Emilie,” he said. He paused a moment, then went on. “If it should happen that you get back in touch with your contacts in the SR, I want to make sure they know we are still very much in the market for weapons-that above everything else.”

“And the MAS 38’s?”

“We’re glad to have them, but there are still a number of cells that need to be armed. The way we saw it, the first delivery was a test of good faith. On both sides.”

“I’ve been reading the newspapers, but nothing’s mentioned.”

“They’ve been used. Well used.”

“In Paris?”

“Up north,” Weiss said. “And in Paris. Remember, what the Nazis permit the newspapers to print is what they want them to print.”

“Well, yes, that’s true.”

“Casson,” Weiss said. “I need guns. Thousands of them. Ammunition. Hand grenades. I want you to know we’re willing to take on any kind of operation if we can get them. Almost anything-I hope you understand me. Of course we’ll take the blame; blood-thirsty Bolshevik beasts and so forth. People see us that way, after all, so it almost doesn’t matter what we do. And then we are held responsible for the reprisals. Somebody must see how very useful that can be.”

Casson nodded.

“Talk to them, Casson. For the moment, the real war behind the lines is in the Ukraine and in Poland. We have to make more happen right here. We don’t want these Germans walking down the streets of Paris smiling and laughing, we don’t want them walking down the street at all. We want them on special buses, with motorcycle escorts, going off to some wretched cultural program staged just for them.”

“I’ll try,” Casson said. “I’ll do what I can. But please understand my part in this is probably over.”

“It may be,” Weiss said. “If it is, I want you to know we appreciate what you’ve done.”

“There is one favor I want to ask,” Casson said.

“Yes?”

“I have a friend, a Jew. She needs to get out of France. Can you help?”

“I’m sorry,” Weiss said. “There are escape lines, some of them run by the British, but it’s not something we do. From time to time, we’ll move somebody-a senior officer, a special operative-but mostly our people stay here and fight.”

“If you think of something, you’ll let me know?”

“I will.” Weiss looked at his watch. “I have to be on my way,” he said.

They stood, shook hands.

“Another meeting,” Casson said.

“Yes. Then, another.”

“It never ends,” Casson said.

“No,” Weiss said. “It never does.”

Casson walked toward the Metro. No help from the FTP, he thought. That leaves de la Barre.

He took the Metro to the 7th and headed for de la Barre’s apartment. When he reached the street, there was a Citroen traction-avant parked at the corner, the driver behind the wheel. Casson glanced at him, then looked away. He walked down the block, went past de la Barre’s doorway. At the other end of the street, a man was standing on the corner. Casson’s heart sank.

He went to a cafe and called de la Barre’s number. A woman answered. “Monsieur de la Barre, please.”

“One moment.”

A man came on the line. “Yes? This is de la Barre.”

Casson couldn’t be sure. It was the voice of an older man, maybe it was de la Barre, maybe not. “I’m interested in eighteenth-century texts,” Casson said. “Particularly physiognomy and anatomy.”

“Anything in particular?”

Casson improvised. “The illustrator Matinus, in Montpellier.”

“The best thing for you, monsieur, is to come and take a look at what I have. Do you know the address?”

“I do.”

“And you are?”

“Monsieur Brun.”

“When would you like to come, Monsieur Brun?”

“Perhaps this afternoon.”

“I look forward to meeting you.”

Casson hung up. Walked away as fast as he could. A trap, he thought. They would trace the call.

The following morning he went out to Luna Park and worked on the books. Lamy sat with him, telling him stories about the Shanghai tong wars of the 1920s. Then he said, “I think I can help you out, Marin. I’d like to spend Thursday afternoons with my girlfriend-I could use somebody to keep an eye on things here. It isn’t hard. Collect the money at night, just make sure nothing goes wrong. An extra six hours a week, maybe a little more. Want to try it?” Casson said he would.

Some people went to church, Casson went to the movies. It took him most of the afternoon to decide what to do-a monologue in bits and pieces. He sat through the German newsreel, straight from the propaganda Abteilung in the Hotel Meurice. Rommel’s Afrika Korps bouncing over the sand dunes of Libya, then taking Benghazi. A shot of a British tank on fire, a shot of a sign that gave the distance to Cairo. Then, the film. Three girls from Paris take their summer vacation at the beach, each of them, it seems…