“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Why?”
“All right, then. I was explaining about the telephone number, and I was about to say that in my circles you are quite well known. Any man who has been able to constantly tweak the noses of the douanes is a hero to the people I associate with. And me? Well, I’m just in the lower echelon of the business — the labor end, you might say, instead of the executive — but at least I’ve managed enough connections to get your telephone number when I need it.”
“Need it?” Huuygens leaned forward, concerned, his smile disappearing. “Is anything wrong? Are you in trouble? Is there anything I can do? Because if there is, you only have to ask. You know that. I owe you that and much more.”
“Good!” André’s voice returned to its former heartiness. “Then you mean I won’t have to just settle for a bottle of beer? You mean you actually intend to keep your promise and pay off the million francs?”
Huuygens laughed aloud. “André, you character! Back to acting again, eh? You’ve pulled me in twice, and that’s bad for my reputation as a man who’s hard to fool. Just what is this business of a million francs you keep harping about?”
“You honestly don’t remember?” The deep voice was suspicious. “Or are you still trying to weasel out of your word?” He gave the other the benefit of the doubt. “Well, let me revive your memory — and I might mention that Michel was also a witness. And since, as I said, he is now connected with the police, his word carries weight. I mention this in case...”
Huuygens grinned. “Will you get on with it!”
“All right.” André’s voice lost its banter; when he continued there was a certain hesitancy in his voice, as if — having come this far — he was now doubtful of the wisdom of pressing the subject. “In the cave that night, while the rest of us were trying to keep from freezing to death — and trying even harder to keep you from blasting that damned radio until we all got caught and shot, you insisted on listening to it. And, believe me, the racket was beginning to make me nervous.” The voice paused. “Do you remember, yet?”
Kek’s grin had faded. There was something in André’s tone, some fear of revelation coupled with some need to reveal, that was completely foreign to the lightness of their previous conversation. “I remember something. But I don’t remember what it was...”
“Then we go on.” André drew a deep breath. “There was a lot of static, and we were just about to rip the thing out of your hands, when a news broadcast came on, and an announcement was made. And then, suddenly, you weren’t the young boy you had been up till then; suddenly you were a man. And you said — and I think I’m pretty close, considering how long it’s been — you said: ‘I’ll kill the animal! I’ll kill him!’ And then you said—” Andre paused “—you said: ‘I’d give a million francs to have his skinny neck between my hands right now!’”
There was a moment of silence, and then André went on, soft and a bit fearful. “Do you remember now, Kek?”
A shock as of electricity passed through the man sitting at the desk. Despite a rigid control practiced successfully over years, his jaw clenched so tightly he could feel a shard of pain edging up his cheekbone, pressing against his temple. The gray eyes closed a moment; when they reopened they were chips of flint, set in a stone face, staring unseeingly across the darkening room.
“Kek? Kek? Are you still there?” The deep voice cursed itself angrily. “I’m an idiot to tell you in this manner. A fool! I should be hung! Me and my damned sense of the dramatic! Kek? Kek?”
Huuygens seemed to hear the words as if from a distance — lost in a blinding red haze of hate, a hate he thought he had conquered years before. Conquered? No, not that. But certainly controlled. He forced away the bitter rancor, attempting to bring himself under restraint, to speak naturally.
“I’m here.” He took a deep breath, expelled it, and then took another. Slowly his jaw unlocked; his hand eased its crushing bite on the receiver. He stared at the desk with eyes as hard as obsidian. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you, André? Not about this?”
“I’m sorry, Kek. Honestly sorry. I’m a fool. Michel didn’t even want me to let you know at all, but I insisted. He finally agreed, but he told me to just say he’d seen the man, and leave the rest to you. But me, with my big mouth, and my damned sense of humor...!”
Huuygens waved this aside almost wearily; his head was bent, his hand pressed over his eyes. “He’s in Lisbon?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. Or at least Michel is positive, and he was a witness at Nuremberg, remember. And while your friend was smart enough not to get caught and hung, Michel saw pictures of him there together with Bormann and the rest. Michel says it’s him, all right. Oh, I guess he’s had a bit of plastic surgery somewhere, sometime, but Michel says there isn’t any doubt.”
“You haven’t seen him yourself?”
“No.”
“He’s living there? In Lisbon?”
“That’s right. And apparently has been for years. Maybe ever since he left Poland, for all I know. He disappeared before the others, you remember.”
“What name is he using?” The initial shock was now well under control; the sharp brain was beginning to function normally again.
“Echavarria. Enrique Echavarria.” The deep voice chuckled, attempting to introduce a touch of levity into the conversation, to somehow ease the shock he knew he had caused. “What a joke! What a plaisanterie! The man apparently claims to be from Madrid, but Michel says his Spanish is awful. Atrocious. He says it sounds like it’s being filtered through a strudel.”
At the other end of the line Huuygens recorded the important information in his brain, discarding the attempt at humor. “And how did Michel happen to see him?”
“Your Boche friend threw a party at his villa for some of the top police officers here — and their wives, those that had them — and Michel’s superior in the department brought him along. Michel is coming along very nicely here, I tell you. I shouldn’t be surprised—”
“A party?” Huuygens frowned at the telephone almost suspiciously. “That was rather stupid, wasn’t it? And dangerous? The man is supposed to be in hiding, and he throws a party?”
“I’m quite sure he knew who he was inviting,” André said dryly. “After all, he was sentenced to hang over eight years ago, and he’s still around. He isn’t a complete fool, you know. You have to remember that a lot of people in Portugal sympathized with the Boches, and particularly most of the police. And I’m sure most of the people he invited — if not all of them — have collected plenty from him at one time or another, for one favor or another. After all, the testimony at Nuremberg indicated that he left Poland with money — not his, but still — and he’s undoubtedly paid to insure his safety and new identity more than once. And I’m sure the major portion of it went to the police.”
“But, still — a party?”
“Well,” André said slowly, reflectively, “I suppose a man can’t live alone in a big house year after year without seeing anyone. He might just as well be in Spandau prison.”
Huuygens’s eyes narrowed even further; he paused a moment and then took a deep breath, expelling it slowly. “You say he lives alone?”
There was a moment’s hesitation at the other end of the line. “I meant that figuratively, Kek. In Portugal nobody lives alone. He has a servant, of course, and...” The deep voice trailed off.
“And?”
“And his wife...”
Huuygens fought against the sick hurt he thought had been wiped out years before. Control yourself! he instructed himself sternly. You are Kek Huuygens now, a man respected in the toughest of circles, a man whose nerve has been proven in many a tight spot, a man whose brain has outwitted his opponents repeatedly. Don’t start acting like a lovesick student now!