Spies of the Balkans

“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.

In the shadows, the silhouette of a small man sat slumped on the edge of the bed. Zannis said, “Harry Byer?”

A white face turned toward him. “Yes,” the man said in English. “More or less.”

Zannis went downstairs to his room and collected his trench coat and valise. When he returned to Room 43, the officer said, “We’ve arranged a car. At oh-four-forty hours. A police car, actually. So your arrival at the Gare du Nord, which is closely guarded, will look authentic.”

“Stolen?”

“Borrowed.”

“Better.”

“And driven by a policeman. Well, at least somebody wearing the uniform.”

The aristocrat laughed, silver chimes, at the idea of whatever old friend this was, playing the role of a policeman. As she started to remove her earrings, Zannis noticed a bare ring finger. Now he realized that these two were probably not married but were, instead, lovers. This sent his mind back to Salonika and a fleeting image of Demetria, by his side, in an occupied city.

Zannis crossed the room, the bare boards creaking beneath his weight, and shifted the room’s single chair so that he sat facing Byer. Then, very laboriously, in his primitive English, he explained how the operation would work. When he showed Byer his photograph in the Greek passport, he was rewarded with at least a flicker of hope in the man’s eyes. “It might even work,” Byer said. He took the passport and studied it. “I do speak a little French, you know. I took it at school.”

“He does,” the officer said. “If you speak slowly.”

Zannis was relieved and switched to a mix of the two languages, making sure at the end of every phrase that Byer understood what he’d been told. “At the borders, Harry, and on the trains-at least as far as Yugoslavia-you can’t say anything at all, because you’re supposed to be Greek. And nobody will speak to you, once you’re wearing these.” He took a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. Byer stared at them. Zannis said, “Better than a POW camp, right?”

Byer nodded. “What did I do, to be in the Sante?”

“You murdered your wife and her lover, in Salonika.”

After a moment, Byer said, “Not the worst idea.”

Zannis ignored the irony. “It had to be a murder of some kind, for the Germans to believe that we’d gotten the French police to arrest you, after you’d fled to Paris.” He paused, then said, “The only plausible crime would be a crime of passion. You don’t much look like a gangster.”

Zannis stood, took a cigarette from his packet, then offered the packet around. Only the officer accepted, inhaling with pleasure as Zannis extinguished the match. He started to speak, but something caught his attention