The Foreign Correspondent

And his name was something else.”

“May I see his card?”

“He didn’t leave a card-is that what they do?”

“Generally, they do. What about the other one?”

“What other one?”

“He was alone? Usually, there are two of them.”

“No, not this time. Just Inspector…something. It started with a D, I think. Or a B.”

Weisz thought it over. “Are you sure he was from the Surete?”

“He said he was. I believed him.” After a moment, she said, “More or less.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Oh, it’s just, snobisme, you know how that goes. I thought, is this the sort of man they employ, this, I don’t know, something crude, about him, about the way he looked at me.”

“Crude?”

“The way he spoke. He was not, overly educated. And not a Parisian-we can hear it.”

“Was he French?”

“Oh yes, certainly he was. From down south somewhere.” She paused, her face changed, and she said, “A fraud, you think? What then? Do you owe somebody money? And I don’t mean a bank.”

“A gangster.”

“Not the movie sort, but his eyes were never still. Up and down, you know? Maybe he thought it was seductive, or charming.” From the expression on her face, the man had not been anything like “charming.” “Who was he, Carlo?”

“I don’t know.”

“Please, we’re not, strangers, you and I. You think you know who he was.”

What to tell her? How much? “It may have something to do with Italian politics, emigre politics. There are people who don’t like us.”

Her eyes widened. “But wouldn’t he be afraid you’d figure it out? That he’d said he was from the Surete when he was, an imposter?”

“Well,” Weisz said, “to these people, it wouldn’t matter. It might be better. Did he say you had to keep it to yourself?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Of course not, I had to tell you.”

“Not everybody would, you know,” Weisz said. He was silent for a moment. She had been courageous, on his behalf, and the way he met her eyes let her know he appreciated that. “You see, it works either way-I’m suspected of something criminal, so your feelings about me are changed, or you tell me, and I have to worry about the fact that I’m being investigated.”

She thought about what he’d said, puzzled for a moment, then understanding. “That is, Carlo, a very ugly thing to do.”

His smile was grim. “Yes, isn’t it,” he said.

Heading back to the office, Weisz stood swaying in a crowded Metro car, the faces around him pale and blank, and private. There was a poem about that, by some American who loved Mussolini. What was it-faces like, like “petals on a wet, black bough.” He tried to remember the rest of it, but the man who’d questioned Veronique wouldn’t leave him alone. Maybe he was exactly who he’d said he was. Weisz’s experience of the Surete went no further than the two inspectors who’d interrogated him, but there were others, likely all sorts. Still, he’d come alone, and left no card, no telephone number. Never mind the Surete, this was not the way police anywhere operated. Information was often best recollected in private, later on, and flics all the world over knew it.

He didn’t want to face what came next. That this was the OVRA, operating from a clandestine station in Paris, using French agents, and launching a new attack against the giellisti. Getting rid of Bottini hadn’t worked, so they’d try something else. The timing was right, they’d seen the new Liberazione a week earlier, and here was their response. It worked. From the time he’d left the gallery he’d been apprehensive, literally and figuratively looking over his shoulder. So, he told himself, they got what they came for. And he knew it wouldn’t stop there.

He left work at six, saw Salamone at the bar and told him what had happened, and was at the Tournon, with Ferrara, by seven-forty-five. All he’d had to do was forget about dinner, but, the way he felt by nightfall, he wasn’t all that hungry.

Being with Ferrara made him feel better. Weisz had begun to see Mr. Brown’s point about the colonel-the antifascist forces weren’t all fumbling intellectuals with eyeglasses and too many books, they had warriors, real warriors, on their side. And Soldier for Freedom was moving along swiftly, had now reached Ferrara’s flight to Marseilles.

Weisz sat on one chair, with the new Remington they’d bought him on the other, between his knees, while Ferrara paced about the room, sitting sometimes on the edge of the bed, then pacing again. “It was strange to be on my own,” he said. “The military life keeps you occupied, tells you what to do next. Everybody complains about it, makes fun of it, but it has its comforts. When I left Ethiopia…we talked about the ship, the Greek tanker, right?”

“Yes. Big, fat Captain Karazenis, the great smuggler.”

Ferrara grinned at the memory. “You mustn’t make him out too much of a scoundrel. I mean, he was, but it was a pleasure to be around him, his answer to the cruel world was to steal it blind.”

“That’s how he’ll be, in the book. Called only ‘the Greek captain.’”

Ferrara nodded. “Anyhow, we had engine trouble off the Ligurian coast. Somewhere around Livorno. That was a bad day-what if we had to put into an Italian port? Would one of the crew give me away? And Karazenis liked to play games with me, said he had a girlfriend in Livorno. But, in the end, we made it, just made it, into Marseilles, and I went to a hotel in the port.”

“What hotel was that?”

“I’m not sure it had a name, the sign said ‘Hotel.’”

“I’ll leave it out.”

“I never knew you could stay anywhere for so little money. Bed bugs, yes, and lice. But you know the old saying: ‘Filth, like hunger, only matters for eight days.’ And I was there for months, and then-“

“Wait, wait, not so fast.”

They worked away at it, Weisz hammering on the keys, churning out pages. At eleven-thirty, they decided to call it quits. The air in the room was smoky and still, Ferrara opened the shutters, then the window, letting in a rush of cold night air. He leaned out, looking up and down the street.

“What’s so interesting?” Weisz said, putting on his jacket.

“Oh, there’s been some guy lurking about in doorways, the last few nights.”

“Really?”

“We’re being watched, I guess. Or maybe the word is guarded.”

“Did you mention it?”

“No. I don’t know that it has anything to do with me.”

“You should tell them about it.”

“Mm. Maybe I will. You don’t think it’s some kind of, problem, do you?”

“I have no idea.”

“Well, maybe I’ll ask about it.” He went back to the window and looked up and down the street. “Not there now,” he said. “Not where I can see him.”

The streets were deserted as Weisz walked back to the Dauphine, but he had an imagined Christa for company. Told her about his day, a version made entertaining for her amusement. Then, back in his room, he fell asleep and found her in his dreams-the first time they’d made love, on a yacht in Trieste harbor. She had worn, that late afternoon, a pair of oyster-colored pajamas, sheer and cool for a summer week at sea. He’d sensed that she