“You’re all right?” Zannis said.
She nodded, gratitude in her eyes.
“Good girl,” he said. “Didi.”
She gave him a conspiratorial smile; the waiter brought menus in golden script. “Here one takes the choucroute garnie,” she said. “And order champagne.”
Sauerkraut? Oh no, not with the way his stomach felt. On the surface, Zannis showed a certain insouciant confidence, but every muscle in his body was strung tight; he was ready to shoot his way out of this restaurant but not at all prepared for sauerkraut. “Maybe they have a fish,” he said.
“Nobody orders that.”
He searched the menu. “Shellfish,” he said.
“If you like.”
He looked up for a moment, then said, “What the hell is that? Behind your shoulder, in the mirror.”
“It’s very famous,” she said. “A memorial to a Bulgarian waiter, slain here a few years ago.”
“It’s a bullet hole.”
“Yes, it is.”
“They don’t fix it? Back where I come from, they have them fixed the next day.”
“Not here.”
The waiter returned. “‘Sieur et ‘dame?”
Zannis ordered the seafood platter, which he would try to eat, followed by the choucroute, which he would not, and a bottle of champagne. As the waiter hurried off, Zannis discovered his neighbors in the adjacent booth: two SS officers with French girlfriends; puffy and blond, green eyeshadow, pouty lips. One of the SS men looked like a precocious child, with baby skin, a low forehead, and eyeglasses in tortoiseshell frames. The other-Zannis understood immediately who he was, what he was-turned to face him, rested an elbow on the plush divider, and said, “Bonsoir, mon ami.” The set of his face and the sparkle in his eyes suggested a view of the world best described by the word droll, but, Zannis saw, he was a certain kind of smart and sophisticated German who’d found, in the black uniform and death’s-head insignia, a way to indulge a taste for evil.
“Bonsoir,” Zannis said.
“Your girl’s a real looker.” He moved his head to get a better view of Didi, said, “Hello, gorgeous,” with a sly smile and waggled his fingers by way of a waved greeting. The aristocrat glanced at him, then looked down. The SS officer, at that stage of inebriation where he loved the world, said, “Aww, don’t be shy, gorgeous.”
Zannis turned back and began to make conversation. “Had much snow this winter?”
From behind him: “Hey! I was talking to you!”
Zannis faced him and said, “Yes?”
“You Frenchmen can be very rude, you know.”
“I’m not French,” Zannis said. Maybe the SS officer wouldn’t figure it out but the girlfriends certainly would.
“No? What are you?”
“I’m from Greece.”
The officer spoke to his friends. “Say, here’s a Greek!” Then, to Zannis, “What brings you to Paris, Nick?”
Zannis couldn’t stop it: a hard stare that said Shut your fucking mouth before I shut it for you. Then, making sure his voice was soft, he said, “I’m a detective, I’m here to bring back a murderer.”
“Oh,” the officer said. “I see. Well, we’re friendly types, you know, and we were wondering what you were doing after dinner.”
“Going home,” Zannis said.
“Because I have this very grand apartment up on the avenue Foch, and you and Gorgeous are invited, for, well, some … champagne.”
The aristocrat sank her clawed fingernails into Zannis’s thigh; he almost yelped. “Thanks, but the lady is tired, I’ll take her home after dinner.”
The officer glared at him, his head weaving back and forth.
The woman beside him said, “Klaus? Are you ignoring us?”
Thank God for Frenchwomen, puffy blond or not! “Enjoy your evening, my friend,” Zannis said, employing a particular tone of voice-sympathetic, soothing-he’d used, all his years with the police, for difficult drunks.
And it almost worked; the officer couldn’t decide whether he wanted to end this battle or not. Then he lurched, and his face lit up. What went on? Maybe his girlfriend’s hand had done something under the table, something more enticing than the aristocrat’s. Whatever it was it worked, and the officer turned away and whispered in girlfriend’s ear.
“Plat de la mer!” the waiter cried out, wheeling to a stop at the table, a gigantic platter of crustaceans held high, balanced on his fingertips.
A taxi was waiting in front of the brasserie, and Zannis directed the driver back to his hotel. A much-relieved aristocrat sank back against the seat and said, voice confidential, “Thank God that’s over. I was afraid you were going to shoot him.”
“Not likely,” he said. This thing in the holster is just for show. And so he’d believed, until his third and final meeting with Escovil. Who’d said, just before they parted, “Finally, I must say something a bit … sticky. Which is, you mustn’t allow Byer to be taken by the Germans, we cannot have him interrogated. So, if it looks like the game is up, you’ll have to, to, to do whatever you must.” Zannis hadn’t answered: at first he couldn’t believe what he’d heard, then he had to, but such madness, murder, was far beyond what he was willing to do.
At war, the city was blacked out; every window opaque, the occasional lighted streetlamp painted blue, car headlights taped down to slits, so the taxi moved cautiously through the silent, ghostly streets. When they reached the hotel and were alone as they approached the doorway, his companion said, “Not long now. Your friend has been brought to the hotel, and you’re meant to catch the early train.”
“The five-thirty-five.”
“Yes, the first train to Berlin. You have all the papers?”
“Stamped and signed: release from the Sante prison, exit visas, everything.”
The night clerk was asleep in a chair behind the reception desk, a newspaper open across his lap. They made sure they didn’t wake him, climbing the stairs quietly as he snored gently down below. When they reached the third floor, Zannis stood by his door and said, “Where is he?”
The aristocrat made an upward motion with her head. “Forty-three.”
In his room, Zannis shed his trench coat and had a look at his valise, which appeared to be undisturbed, but, he well knew, an experienced professional search would leave no evidence. The aristocrat, waiting at the door, said, “Ready to go?” In her voice, as much impatience as, true to her breeding, she ever permitted herself to reveal. These people were amateurs, Zannis thought, and they’d had all they wanted of secrecy and danger.
They climbed another flight, the aristocrat tapped twice on the door, then twice again, which was opened to reveal a darkened room. The man who’d opened the door had a sharp handsome face, dark hair combed straight back, and stood as though at attention. A military posture; he was perhaps, Zannis thought, a senior officer. The aristocrat and the officer touched each other’s cheeks with their lips, Paris style, murmuring something that Zannis couldn’t hear but certainly an endearment. So these two were husband and wife. The officer then said, to Zannis, “I can’t tell you my name,” as though it were an apology. “You are Zannis?”
“I am.”
They shook hands, the officer’s grip powerful and steady. “Your problem now,” he said, nodding toward the interior of the room.