Heart of Lies (3 page)

“And your parents just let you go?”

He shrugged. “I was a very different sort of child, and my parents made it very clear that being different was dangerous. In fact I’ve sometimes wondered if I was actually my father’s son. Good God, I’ve never mentioned that to anyone.”

She reached for his hand and gave it a quick squeeze. “I know what it’s like to be different. My father and my sister are so very…German.”

He smiled at her. “And you’re not?”

“Not like them.” She glanced at her watch. “Oh, no! I didn’t realize it was so late. I have to leave now to get back by eight.”

“May I escort you?”

“I don’t think so. The family I’m staying with would be a bit surprised to see me return accompanied by a man. But, thank you.”

“When will I see you again?”

“Do you want to?”

“Do you have any doubt about that?”

She looked down at the table. “No,” she whispered.

“Good.” He came around the table and pulled back her chair, but when she stood up he did not move away. She turned to face him. They gazed at each other, the strength of their desire enveloping them like a shared baptism. Then his hands were cupping both of her cheeks, tilting her face upward as he brought his lips closer to hers.

Leo wanted to devour her then and there, but they were surrounded
by far too many amused French eyes pretending not to watch them. All he could do was briefly touch her lips with his own.

“Can you meet me at the Madeleine tomorrow? Around five o’clock?” he asked, still just inches from her face.

“Nothing could keep me away.”

He fell asleep thinking of Martha, hoping he would dream about her, but the war came back to him that night. He was huddled at the bottom of a frozen trench, surrounded by faces that were no longer human, their features distorted by the ravages of toxic gas. Other men scuttled like rats among the dead bodies of their own comrades-at-arms, risking execution for the chance they might find something of value they could use to obtain cigarettes or extra rations on the black market. And he saw again the real rats, fat and defiant, waiting for men to die, or brazenly feasting on men not yet dead, no longer afraid of their screams.

He awoke bathed in sweat despite the cold December air. Gradually, the cacophonous symphony of an urban morning replaced the sound of mortar fire. He blinked. He was lost. Then he remembered. He was in Paris. He’d met Martha. And today he’d finally have a chance to impress some very important men. It was shaping up to be the best day he’d had in a very, very long time.

At eleven o’clock he entered the modest front door of the grandest hotel in Paris. He could not remember the last time he’d felt so full of purpose.

Leo was not the first to arrive. Janos Bacso was already engaged in conversation with a man whom Leo did not recognize.

The newcomer was short. His face was round, his mouth thin, and his eyes slightly almond-shaped. He had black hair and a dark olive
complexion. His badly cut suit was made from a fabric with a loud stripe that might have looked decent on someone taller, but looked comical on him as he sat with casual arrogance in an armchair made for a finer class of person. At first Leo thought he was a gypsy, but immediately disregarded that possibility. Janos Bacso would never do business with a gypsy.

Bacso made the introductions. “Allow me to present Imre Károly, the chief of police of Budapest. He’ll be participating in our meeting tomorrow evening.” Károly rose from his seat. Leo automatically extended his arm to shake the man’s hand, then resisted the urge to wipe his own hand off on his pants. He’d never seen Károly, but he’d certainly heard of him. Few people in Budapest had not. He was one of Gyula Gombos’ chief henchmen. Gombos was the head of Hungary’s small but noisy Fascist party. Although the Fascists had not garnered much popular support among the Hungarian voters, through sheer ruthlessness and the maximization of their few political connections they’d managed to place some people, like Károly, in positions of power. Leo wondered why Bacso was involved with this man.

It was not the first time that he’d been forced to be gracious to an avowed anti-Semite. His post as concierge required that he ignore the political opinions of the hotel guests, but this was testing the limit. On the other hand, he couldn’t back out just because he didn’t like the company. There might be valid security reasons for including the chief of police. He would have to wait and see how the game played itself out.

Soon five men were in the room: Leo, Bacso, Graetz, Mitchell, and Károly. Despite his burning curiosity about how to accomplish his electronic surveillance, Leo didn’t feel comfortable broaching the issue when everyone else seemed content to make small talk. Graetz
and Károly debated the relative merits of two types of machine guns. Mitchell told several bawdy tales about what services one could buy from a Chinese whore in a seedy quarter of Shanghai known as Hongkew. After forty-five minutes Bacso dismissed the group, reminding them that the time and place for tomorrow’s all-important negotiations would be communicated via a message delivered to their respective hotels. He asked Leo and Károly to stay for a few moments, to discuss “logistics.”

“Leo,” Bacso began, “each of us is going to spend the day preparing for certain aspects of tomorrow’s meeting. Imre is here as our electronics expert. He has valuable experience in this area, and will assist you in learning how to use the telephone wiretaps we will be utilizing. I’ll leave you two alone to get acquainted.”

So that’s it,
thought Leo.
He’s the espionage expert. Must come in handy in his business.

“So how about some lunch before we get to work?” Károly offered, proceeding to pinch his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger in an absent-minded gesture Leo found particularly repugnant. This was going to be a long day after all; at least until he could escape and meet Martha.

They decided to eat in a restaurant overlooking the Place de la Concorde. After relieving them of their overcoats, a disenchanted waiter led them to a poorly positioned table. Károly sat down and immediately ordered cocktails for them both. Some of the hostility Leo was feeling toward the offensive little man must have spilled out from under his normally composed demeanor, for Károly gave him a suspicious look.

“Do you have something on your mind?” he asked.

Leo came up with an excuse for his scowl. “Just reacting to the look
that waiter gave us, a special face I’m sure he reserves for his old war buddies. As if they could have beaten the Kaiser and the Emperor without the Americans to haul their constipated little asses out of trouble.” He threw a dirty look in the direction of the perfectly innocuous waiter, who, somewhat startled at the depth of animosity he saw in Leo’s face, immediately approached the maître d’hôtel about assigning Leo and his companion to another server.

Evidently placated by this response, Károly looked around to confirm that no one was within earshot. “Listen, Leo,” he began, looking around once more. “That brings me to something I want to discuss with you. I have a bit of personal business to attend to while I’m here in Paris. I’d like to buy a present for a lady friend.”

A carnivorous grin replaced the scheming look he’d worn the moment before. “She’s a sweet one. I’d tell you who she is, but she belongs to someone who would take my nuts home in a little glass jar and feed them to his cat if he found out I even knew what his girlfriend’s tits look like. So, until I can arrange to have him eliminated from the competition, I need to be uncharacteristically discreet. The problem is, I want to get her something that will knock her right off her little high-class ass.”

“So, are you looking for suggestions?” Leo asked, hoping to avoid a lengthy description of exactly what services this man expected to get in exchange for his token of affection. He then signaled for the waiter to replenish their drinks. He’d need a bit more liquid fortification to make it through this lunch.
In less than four hours I’ll see Martha again.
That thought cheered him up considerably.

“Christ, no,” Károly was saying, “I know what I want. I saw it yesterday. Trouble is these goddamn French bastards. I could tell from the
moment I walked into the store that no one was taking me seriously. So I thought, ‘They’ll listen to the sound of my money.’ But then I said to myself, ‘To hell with it. Why should I give them the satisfaction after they pissed on me?’ Besides, it’s better if I don’t buy the thing myself. Even though we’re in Paris, I do have a certain notoriety. Besides which, I’m a married man, and this present is not going to end up around the neck of the current Mrs. Károly.”

“Are you saying that you want me to buy a certain necklace for you?” Leo asked, relieved to be at what seemed like the end of a long and distasteful tale.

“Exactly. I like that in a man. Get right to the point. Look, Bacso tells me you speak French as well as a damn French poodle, and you have the look, the carriage, whatever the hell you want to call it. I’ve seen you in action at the Bristol. You’ll have those little French pricks kissing your ass the moment you walk in the door.”

Leo was too disgusted to be flattered. “Where do you need me to go?”

“Cartier.”

It took a supreme amount of self-control for Leo not to spit out his drink. What kind of money did this man make? And for what? Extortion? Murder for hire? No wonder he felt out of place walking into one of the most prestigious jewelry houses on the whole continent. Leo stifled a laugh as he imagined the faces on the distinguished Cartier sales-people when the police chief sauntered in. Károly must have looked like a pig in church.

“Why Cartier?” he asked with a smile, hoping the real subject of his mirth remained hidden.

“Because this,” replied Károly, stabbing his finger into the air too
close to Leo’s face, “is a Cartier-quality cunt. Do this favor for me. You won’t regret it. We’ll have plenty of time to play with the telephonic toys this afternoon, or tomorrow, even.”

“Look,” said Leo, trying to find a way out, “I’m not sure that we should be taking care of personal business at a time like this, and I have another appointment at five—”

He stopped talking. Károly’s cold stare made clear that his hesitancy was not appreciated.
That’s all he needed, to offend the chief of police. Damn. What could it hurt?
Tucking his doubts into a dark, quiet corner of his conscience, Leo agreed to make the purchase after lunch.

It was a short walk back to the Place Vendôme and the Cartier showroom at No. 13, Rue de la Paix. A block before they reached it, Károly pulled Leo aside and handed him a long rectangular wallet. “There should be enough cash in here to pay for the thing. It’s a sort of diamond collar, in the center display case, straight ahead of you as you walk in the door. I’ll meet you back at your hotel at three o’clock. You’re at the Hotel du Louvre, right?”

“Wouldn’t you rather just wait here? I could just hand it to you.” Károly shook his head. “I want to inventory the equipment we’ll be using. And I trust you, on account of you’ll never get out of Paris alive with the money or the necklace if you try anything stupid.”

What a way to win friends.
Leo slipped the fat wallet into the breast pocket of his suit and the two men parted. Well, now he was in it: may as well finish the nasty business. As concierge at the Bristol he’d brokered many purchases for wealthy guests, some of which he knew were not destined for lawful spouses. His commissions on these purchases paid for his few luxuries, such as the elegantly tailored suit he wore today. But he’d met few people as distasteful as Imre Károly.

He walked the short distance to the twin marble columns that adorned the entrance to Cartier’s and rang the buzzer that signaled a request to enter. An answering buzzer advised him that the door was now unlocked. He entered the oak-paneled splendor of the showroom and removed his hat. A guard to the inside right of the doorway gave him a stoic greeting.

Leo walked straight to the velvet-lined display case in the center of the room. The attractive sales associate standing behind it favored him with a smile that was anything but stoic.

“Good afternoon, sir. May we show you something special this afternoon?”

Leo smiled at her as he removed his hat. “You already have.” The woman blushed.

He looked down into the display case. There it was: a truly spectacular necklace fashioned out of emerald-cut diamonds, each one at least four carats. Three rows of them were set end to end, side by side, in barely visible bezels of pure platinum. The stones seized and dissected the light, glimmering with unspeakable brilliance.

The necklace was displayed on a small, truncated sculpture of white marble, resembling a woman’s neck and shoulders. Leo understood why Károly was so taken with this piece. It formed a tight collar, reaching high around the neck. The wearer would possess the diamonds, and yet be possessed by them. Men, seeing that necklace around the neck of a beautiful woman, would instantly wish to see her wearing just the diamonds, and nothing else. He would love to see it on Martha.

He indicated his interest with a small nod of his head. “This also intrigues me.”

“Of course, sir. One moment, please.”

In a few moments a middle-aged gentleman emerged from the doorway that led to the private office where important clients were invited to examine prospective purchases at their leisure. “Bonjour, Monsieur,” he greeted Leo, in a crisp but amiable manner. “Henri Xavier at your service. And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

“Jean Pierre Printemps,” Leo answered, using the French equivalent of “John Smith.”

Xavier took the name for what it was: a request for privacy. “Marie-Therese informs me that you are interested in examining one of our latest pieces, the diamond collar. A most extraordinary piece, as you can see, made of flawless, five-carat emerald-cut stones. It signals a complete break from the Art Nouveau style, reflecting Monsieur Cartier’s expanding interest in geometric forms. Unfortunately, Monsieur Cartier is in London at the moment, but I shall be happy to retrieve it for you.” With a few deft moves he unlocked the display case and removed the necklace, then placed it in a box lined with black silk velvet.