Night Soldiers

hidden in his hands. Barbette’s mouth twisted in sorrowful irony.

“Oh Djadja,” he said, not unkindly, “women do not take their skirts down to use the toilet, they pull them up. Is that possibly something you would not know? Yes? No? Or is it just the strain of the moment that’s confused you? Yes? Tell me, my friend, you must say something.”

Omaraeff just shook his head, refused to uncover his face.

“Poor Djadja,” Barbette said. From where he stood, the top of Omaraeff’s shaven skull offered a particularly tempting aspect and, without further discussion, he raised his hand and completed his mission. Omaraeff rocked back, then collapsed forward, still seated, his upturned hands resting motionless on the tile floor. It was a small facility, the ladies’ W.C. at the Brasserie Heininger, with marble walls and ceiling, and Barbette’s ears rang for hours thereafter.

Roddy Fitzware’s favorite place in Paris was the center window table at the Tour d’ Argent. He loved the view of the Seine, best appreciated from the sixth-floor restaurant, well above the heads of the tourists. He loved the serious atmosphere-one came here to dine beautifully, period-which stimulated a deep, formal serenity in him, made him, he felt, his best self. Here he could do without the absurd eye makeup and stylish effeminacy that cloaked his persona in the cafe society in which, by direction, he’d taken up residence. He loved the caneton, and he loved the turbot. When it came time to spend some of His Majesty’s Secret Impres’t Funds, the Tour d’ Argent was where he liked to go. One had to scribble the odd voucher, of course, so he couldn’t just simply dine. He had to do His Majesty’s business.

His Majesty’s business arrived on the stroke of 1:15. Fabien Theaud, a stiff-necked young Frenchman, surely somebody’s nephew, who moved in the upper circles of the DST-the French equivalent of MI5. In other words, a cop. But, Fitzware thought, a cop in a very good suit. He watched him march resolutely toward the table, chin raised, nostrils pinched, mouth slightly drawn down, as though the world disgusted him.

Fitzware stood, they shook hands formally, in the French manner-a single, firm pump-and Theaud seated himself with ceremony. To the left of the elaborate luncheon setting on Theaud’s side of the table lay a brown paper parcel neatly tied with string. The Frenchman politely ignored the package. He had been treated to these lunches for more than a year and had learned to accept Fitzware’s sense of theater. Revelations were not to be made in the first act.

Once ritual courtesies were done with and after the service of the wine, Fitzware came to the point. “Your people,” he said, “must be in a frightful uproar this morning.”

“Oh?” Theaud seemed legitimately surprised.

“Last night’s madness-the little war at Heininger.”

“Hardly a war. No one shot back and only the headwaiter was killed. In any case, nothing very interesting for us.” Theaud waved it away.

“Really?”

“Les gangsters. Some sort of stupid criminal nonsense. Perhaps an extortion, perhaps a war between butchers for the beef concession, one can only imagine the truth of it. The prefecture already has the two machine-gunners. Trash. Low-grade pimps from Clichy. As for the headwaiter, shot in the toilet, I think that was what the Americans call a rub- out.”

“Nothing much for you, then.”

“No. The police and the justice ministry will see to it.”

“Some prominent people injured, one reads.”

Theaud indulged himself in a mighty Gallic shrug accompanied by an explosive “Pach!” Then smiled grimly. “The American socialite? The German racing driver? These people. They come to Paris to be decadent, by accident they come upon the real thing, and then they howl. Good stuff for the newspapers is all it is. As for Heininger’s, I wouldn’t try to go there for a week or two if I were you.”

“They will close down, then?”

“Close! Heavens no. You won’t be able to get in the door.”

Fitzware smiled ruefully. “In any case, your efficiency is admirable, to have the assassins so quickly.”

Theaud brightened visibly at being complimented for efficiency. “Nothing to it, mon vieux. In the British phrase, ‘information received.’ The criminals were sold out almost immediately. They won’t talk, of course-that would be to violate the code of the underworld. So what they’ll get is a nice quick little trial and, if they don’t give us the murderer of the headwaiter, the services of Dr. Guillotin. Truly, I don’t believe they’ll mind all that much. There is some honor to it in their society.”

“In some countries they would be considered merely accessories.”

“Perhaps. But this is France, and here they are murderers.”

For a time they turned their attention to the food and the wine, then Fitzware asked, “May I ask the state of your progress in the matter of the Russian courier?”

“Ach, you’ll ruin my lunch. A nest of snakes is what that is. Informants and counterinformants, power struggles in the emigre community, lies and wishful thinking and false confessions and rumors and every sort of unimaginable nonsense. I fear that one may be forever lost to us.”

“You have found it,” Fitzware said simply.

Theaud looked at him suspiciously. “Yes? I cannot believe my luck would be that good.”

“But it is. Just to the left of your plat de salade.”

“This package?”

“Indeed. It is a Radom.”

“Oh. A Radom. And that is …?”

“An automatic pistol of Polish manufacture, a very serviceable weapon, greatly prized east of the Oder. You’ll find that it killed Myagin and, by accident, Ivan Donchev, the old man in the movie theater.”

Theaud raised a hand and halted him right there. Called for the wine waiter and ordered the best Montrachet they could bring up. “Thus,” he said dramatically, “to those who serve France.”

Fitzware inclined his head in a seated bow. He was clearly enjoying himself. “There’s a bit more,” he said. “The gun was obtained from a Turk, called Yasin, in the quarter out by Boulevard Raspail. The man who bought it is called Nikko Petrov, a Bulgarian, presently employed as a waiter at the Brasserie Heininger. There. Now I feel I have served France.”

Theaud’s face collapsed. “Oh no,” he said, “you must not do this to me.”

Fitzware was stunned.

“You are telling me-if I were not deaf as a post and entirely unable to hear you-that some connection exists between the Myagin murder and last night’s frolic at the brasserie. Tit for tat. A plot in the restaurant results in the murder of a Soviet diplomat, thus the NKVD returns the favor by shooting the headwaiter and causing general consternation in the brasserie. They would assume, of course, that Heininger would not survive such an incident, being insensitive, for the moment, to cafe society’s appetite for scandal. If that is, indeed, what you are telling me, I do not hear it. You did not say it.”

“In God’s name why?”

“Politiques. Four days ago, as I am sure you are aware, Camille Chautemps, a radical socialist, succeeded Leon Blum, a plain old un-radical socialist, as the premier of France. This is, therefore, no time to anger our most formidable ally, the USSR, by accusing them of upsetting a bunch of rich foreigners in a restaurant. Not with Chancellor Hitler sharpening his teeth on our doorstep, it isn’t. My dear Fitzware, I think I am going to weep. With frustration. Right in front of God in the Tour d’ Argent. You have solved our most pressing case and taken it away from us in the same breath.”

Fitzware bit the end of his thumb and thought for a time. “Well, then, may I suggest you don’t solve it? You may come part of the way, surely. Pick up this Petrov character, drop a curtain around him-matters of national security, trial in camera-and let it stand there. The Heininger connection need not come up, as long as you keep him well away from the newspapers. And, in the case of the brasserie, at least you know what happened. That might mean something or other later on.”

Theaud drummed his fingers on the table. “Perhaps. It becomes complicated, one has to find a way through, but it’s possible. There are those in the Ministry of Justice who would unravel the whole affaire, and they will have to be deceived. But it would not be the first time, and we could