“The Liberation change that?”
“Now the locals can’t get enough. And the soldiers, the Americans, they like it, too. And they like our women,” said Ververt, looking out at the audience. “Especially the blacks.”
“So why call it American jazz?” asked Eddie. “Sounds the same to me.”
“These days if I called horse shit ‘American’ I could sell horse shit sandwiches. Paris will tire of you soon enough, you’ll see. Liberators quickly turn into occupiers.”
“You get any British in here?” asked Von Leinsdorf.
“Everyone comes to Montmartre. We create a fantasy here; that sin can be packaged, contained, sold like chewing gum. It appeals to a fundamental part of human nature, whether it’s Nazi, American, British, bourgeois, resistance, collaborator.”
“I don’t see any Brits.”
“They’re not allowed to wear their uniforms,” said Ververt. “Some concern that they mustn’t be seen in any boîte de nuit that traffics in this alleged black market.”
“That’s the English for you. Always erring on the side of propriety,” said Von Leinsdorf. “They don’t approve of premarital sex because it might lead to dancing.”
Ververt snorted, his approximation of a laugh.
“Don’t they have their own officers’ club?” asked Von Leinsdorf casually.
“They’ve taken over Maxim’s,” said Ververt. “Do you know it? The Rue Royale?”
“Who’s been to Paris and doesn’t know Maxim’s?” said Von Leinsdorf, with a Gallic shrug.
“It’s not the same. The gendarmes arrested the maître d’ recently, Albert, a very well-known, a very well-liked local personality.”
“For what reason?”
“For extending the same courtesies to the Nazis that he has shown the haute monde for twenty-five years. This was not collaboration, it was hospitality. An essential part of his business.”
“I’ll bet those same gendarmes who arrested Albert,” said Von Leinsdorf, “have been collaborating with the Nazis in Maxim’s for the last three years. And the only reason was to prevent Albert from testifying against them in the reprisals.”
“You see? Exactement! The perils of Liberation.”
“That’s what you can count on in times like these,” said Von Leinsdorf. “Égalité, liberté, hypocrisie.”
Ververt picked up the two thousand from the table. “Money has no politics. It will outlast ideology.”
“Ah yes, but will we, my friend?”
Ververt snorted in appreciation and pocketed the cash. “Come back tomorrow night. Seven o’clock, before we open.”
Von Leinsdorf stood up to leave and Eddie followed suit. He knew that Von Leinsdorf had forged a bond with the man, and that he’d gotten what they came for, but he wasn’t clear about how or when it had happened.
“Where do the Brits keep their officers’ mess?” asked Von Leinsdorf.
“The Hotel Meurice,” said Ververt. “Rue de Rivoli.”
“The Meurice. Ah yes. Walking distance from Maxim’s.”
“You get the idea.”
Ververt gestured to his flunkies and they escorted Von Leinsdorf and Eddie away. Von Leinsdorf surveyed the cramped, low-ceilinged room as they moved through the mixed-race crowd that included a number of interracial couples. All eyes were on the tiny stage, where the quartet was heating up, sweat pouring off them under the lights, blacks playing saxophone and bass, white men on piano and bass.
“Hey, Dick, you want a drink?” asked Eddie, catching up with him near the door, flushed with success. “They say it’s on the house.”
“I don’t drink with niggers,” said Von Leinsdorf, and walked outside.
The neon sign outside, LE MORT RAT, threw garish red light onto the wet pavement. They turned up their collars against the cold and threaded through the tangled warren of steep, cobblestoned streets toward the small apartment a few blocks away that Eddie had rented with cash after they arrived that morning.
“Have to say, that couldn’t have gone much better,” said Eddie, breaking the silence. “You see that scar on his face? Bet that wasn’t a cooking accident.”
“He’s a Corsican pimp and a drug dealer and he’ll cut your throat the first chance he gets.”
“Be that as it may, according to our books the son of a bitch always paid on time for goods received.”
“It’s one thing him doing business with the army, Eddie; the size of your outfit kept him in line. He knows we don’t have that kind of weight behind us. You’re sure your boys at the depot can deliver?”
“They’re in like Flynn. It’s the Christmas train, le jackpot of jackpots. Bringing in luxury rations for every dogface in Paris.”
“And the branch line runs through Versailles.”
“Yeah, I’ve worked it myself. Don’t worry, this is a bull’s-eye right down the stovepipe, baby. Pull off this one score, we retire to the land of tits and honey.”
“Yes. The American Dream. Hedonism and sloth.”
Eddie didn’t catch the irony. “Man, it’s a beautiful thing.”
36 Quai des Orfevres, Paris
DECEMBER 20, 10:00 P.M.
Earl Grannit and Bernie Oster had been sitting on a bench in the cavernous lobby of the city’s police headquarters for over two hours. A large electric clock ticked directly overhead, above a bulletin board plastered with sheets of official announcements. Grannit’s badge hadn’t made much impression on the harried civil servants manning the desks and scurrying through the halls. They watched as uniformed gendarmes hustled in a steady stream of suspects for processing through their overworked justice system. From a detective’s bullpen beyond the foyer the clatter of multiple typewriters clashed with the sound of raised voices shouting at each other in French.
“Business is booming,” said Bernie.
Grannit lit another cigarette, leaned forward, and ran a hand over his face. The man looked worn to the bone.
“You were a cop,” said Bernie. “In New York.”
“That’s right.”
Bernie looked around the room, turning the MP’s helmet around in his hands. “Is it any different here?”
“The same shit flowing down a different sewer.”
“Never been inside a police station before. Looks like a hell of a job.”
“It’s a hell of a world.”
“Are people just born bad, is that what makes them do this shit?”
“It’s a choice. Everybody’s always got a choice.”
Bernie hesitated. “Von Leinsdorf worked at a death camp.”
Grannit looked at him. “What?”
“Dachau’s a death camp. They’re killing people. Jews mostly, others too. I don’t know how many, maybe millions, all over Germany. Do they know about this back home?”
Grannit shook his head.
“Started with them taking people out of the cities. Deporting them to camps. We all knew about that. Nobody did anything. Then this started and nobody wanted to know.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. Maybe two years.”
“Von Leinsdorf told you this?”
Bernie nodded. A wave of emotion hit him. “I want to be a good person. But I was in that army. I did what I could, but it wasn’t enough. I don’t see any way to make that right.”
A clerk arrived to collect them. He led them into a warren of cubicles and offices and deposited them outside a door that read le commisaire. The clerk knocked; someone inside bid them enter.
A weary, middle-aged man stood behind a desk lighting a pipe. He wore an ill-fitting hand-knit sweater against the cold, waved them forward, and pointed to chairs in front of the desk. A small sign on his cluttered desk read INSPECTOR GEORGES-VICTOR MASSOU.