The Predators (25 page)

“You don’t have to do that,” she answered. “You know sometimes I have to sit with certain clients. I never really know when I will be able to leave.”

Quickly, she washed the dishes and changed from her housedress to a simple white blouse and black skirt. I sat there and watched her as she carefully pulled up her black-seamed silk stockings, making sure that the seams were straight. She then stepped into her black high-heeled shoes. She turned to me. “Didn’t you ever see a girl pull on her stockings before?”

I laughed. “No.”

“Why are you laughing?” she asked, slightly annoyed.

“I was not watching your stockings,” I said. “I was looking at your shaved pussy. The white skin around it made me think it was your panties.”

She laughed, too. “I never wear panties—only when I’m working on stage.”

“And after that?” I asked.

“No panties. Even when I sit down at the table with our clients. But it is no problem since I only sit with the queers at the club. They love me. I am their favorite since I do the sadomasochistic act.” She smiled. “Some of them are very nice men and from good families that are very rich.”

“Do they give you money?” I asked.

“Of course. And we get a commission on every bottle of champagne that is sold to our clients. I am very lucky. The gay boys are more generous than the others.” She looked at me. “And I don’t have to have sex with them.”

“What about the other girls at the club?” I asked. “Does Paul get extra money for the girls’ extra services?”

She laughed. “You Americans are naive. The Blue Note doesn’t allow any ‘extra services.’ Paul sends those customers who want extra services over to his club in Montmartre.”

“And you? Do you have any ties to anyone? Any special men friends?” I asked.

“I did, some years ago in Lyons. But he went into the army and was killed in action. After that, I came to Paul in Paris. And here I am.”

“Are you happy here?” I asked.

“I am alive. The Boche haven’t gotten me. And Paul gives me protection. Yes, I am happy.” She nodded. “As happy as I can be until this terrible war is over and I can go home.”

“I think all of us want the same thing. Just to go home.” I smiled. I looked at my Ingersoll. It was almost ten o’clock. I looked at her as she went to the door. “Do you want me to walk over to the club with you? You should have protection on the dark streets,” I said.

She laughed. “No, thank you, Jerree. The doorman from the club picks me up every night.”

“Okay,” I said. “I was just trying to help.”

“Thank you again,” she said. “Paul is an old friend of my papa. This is why he is my protector.”

I watched as she closed the door behind her. Then I looked around. Maybe I could do something to fix up the apartment. Then it dawned on me. I could put something in her apartment that very few people in France had: a radio. The PX had the best radios in the world. In France you couldn’t even buy a radio, you had to get it on the black market and it would cost an arm and a leg. I didn’t bother to unpack. I headed straight for the PX and picked up the biggest worldwide-band radio they had and brought it back to the apartment. I placed it in the middle of the dining table, where she would see it as soon as she came home. By this time I was too tired to unpack. I dropped into bed and fell asleep. There would be time to unpack in the morning.

8

My small alarm clock buzzed me awake at 6:30
A.M.
It was still dark. I turned on the light and went to the bathroom in my BVDs and barefoot so I wouldn’t make any noise and wake her up. On the way I peeked into the dining room. The radio which I had placed on the table was gone. I smiled to myself. It was the right gift.

By the time I had shaved and washed, I could hear music coming from the kitchen. I came out of the bathroom, holding a towel over my BVDs. She was sitting at the dinner table, the radio in the center, listening to the music while she smoked a cigarette.

She turned and smiled. “Thank you for such a wonderful gift. It is something that I wanted.”

“I’m glad,” I said. “I’ll get dressed. I feel stupid standing here in my BVDs.”

“I made fresh coffee for you and there are some fresh croissants for you.” She smiled. “And don’t worry about your underwear. My father and my brother were always in their long johns at breakfast.”

I dropped the towel and sat down at the table. She served me a café au lait. Coffee and milk, French style. I took a teaspoonful of sugar and began to stir. “I didn’t know that you had a brother,” I said.

“He was the baby of the family. He was only eighteen when he went into the army. He was killed when the Boche rolled over the Maginot Line.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It was four years ago. It was sad, but it is something that many French families had to live through.” She shook her head. “Now you Americans are here and it is better—finally the Germans are losing. In a few months the war may be over.”

She rose from the table and brought back some brioche, croissants, and orange marmalade. “I am sorry but we have no butter. We cannot buy it in the stores.”

“Maybe I can bring some from the mess hall and also coffee and canned milk.”

She laughed. “We will be living like millionaires.”

“Close to it,” I said. I looked at her. “Is there some way that I can take you to dinner tonight?”

“I’d like that,” she said. “But it would have to be early. I have to be at work by ten o’clock.”

“I know that,” I said. “But you will have to pick a restaurant because I don’t know any restaurants here.”

“I know all of them,” she said. “Seven o’clock tonight, if it’s okay with you.”

“Perfect,” I said as I got up. “I have to get dressed now. I apologize that I haven’t unpacked yet, but I will do that tonight after we’ve had dinner.”

“No problem,” she said, rising from the table. She picked up my cup and plate. “I’ll help you.”

I stared at her. With a cup in one hand and a plate in the other, her morning kimono fell open. Tits, belly, and pussy. It was beautiful. I felt myself getting hard.

She laughed at me. “Don’t get embarrassed. I always go around the apartment like this.”

“That’s great,” I said. “But I will need at least a few cold showers each day.”

“You are funny, Jerree.” She smiled. “And very sweet.” She placed the dishes in the sink and looked over her shoulder at me. “You better get dressed, soldier,” she said. “Or you’ll really be late for work.”

9

Paul was waiting for me on the street in front of the apartment.
“Bonjour.”
He smiled.

“Good morning,” I answered. “What brings you out this early? Don’t you ever sleep?”

Paul laughed. “Corsicans never sleep,” he said, and took my arm. “I have my car around the corner and I brought two men with me who want to do business with you.”

“Can’t it be this evening? I have to go to work,” I said.

“These men are very important. It is necessary that you speak with them now,” he said. “Let’s hurry.” Paul still holding my arm, we turned the corner. I could see two men sitting in the backseat. He opened the car door and he pushed me into it. As soon as he sat down next to me, the chauffeur started to move the car out into the lane of traffic.

I looked at Paul. “What’s all this bullshit about? What kind of business do these men want to talk to me about?” I looked in the back at the two men. Their eyes did not meet mine.

Paul spoke almost apologetically. “We cannot be seen with these gentlemen. Everything said here must be held in confidence. I will not mention any names, but one of the gentlemen here is one of the chiefs of the Paris Sûreté.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Great,” I said, shaking my head. “What could they want me for? Outside of throwing me in the can.”

“You Americans have a very funny sense of humor,” Paul said. Then his voice became stern. “The gentlemen only want to make you rich.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How are they going to do that?”

The man in the gray business suit leaned toward me. He spoke in perfect English, British style. “Sergeant,” he said in a voice accustomed to authority. “It has come to our attention that you are in charge of repairing army jeeps that have been damaged. I understand also that you are able to move some of them into civilian hands.”

“That’s right,” I said. “But only those jeeps that headquarters has ordered to be destroyed because they are too expensive to repair. Unfortunately, we don’t have enough of them to meet the demand.”

The other man, who was wearing a dark blue suit, spoke also in British English. “What if you had ten jeeps a week to repair, could you handle that?”

“I’d need more men,” I said. “But, yes. I can handle it. But there is no way I will move that many of them into the civilian market. That many jeeps will stick out like a sore thumb. Then I really would wind up in the can.”

“You are a funny man, Sergeant,” the gray suit said. “First, we must have names so that you can address us. I am Jack and my confrere is Peter. Of course, they are not our real names, but that is not important.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. By this time, I figured out that the gray suit was the French general. But I was smart enough not to salute him.

The gray suit nodded. “Now I have a connection with the U.S. Army that will supply you with at least ten jeeps that have the official papers for their destruction.”

“We still can’t dump that many cars on the street without being tagged,” I said.

Peter, the blue suit, smiled. “We are not dumping them into the streets of Paris. As a matter of fact, the jeeps will not even remain in France. You deliver us the jeeps and that is all you have to worry about. You do your work and you get your money. And it will be more money than you are getting in black-marketing the jeeps here.”

“How will all of this be arranged?” I asked.

“You didn’t ask how much money you would be receiving,” Jack, the gray suit, said.

“I am not a businessman; I will be happy if Paul would take care of that for me. I am sure he will be completely fair,” I said. “But here is one other problem. I will need more personnel.”

Jack gray suit smiled. “We will arrange for that also. When you need the help just send your request to your commanding officer. He will have orders from headquarters to give you anything you need.”

I turned to Paul. “Look, this is big business. Wholesaling. But what about the man that bought the first car and ordered two more?”

“You can deliver them to him,” Paul said.

“It will be fine,” Peter blue suit said. “It will take us at least two weeks to have everything in place.”

Jack gray suit smiled and handed me an envelope. “Here is an advance on your work.”

I looked at the package of bills he put in my hand. It was U.S. one-hundred-dollar bills. I turned to Paul and gave him the money. “I would like Paul to hold the money until some of the work is done.”

Peter blue suit leaned toward me. “That’s five thousand dollars, Sergeant. It is yours to keep.”

“Thank you, gentlemen,” I said. “I have confidence that Paul will take care of the money until I feel that it’s right to receive it.”

Paul took his small leather bag that all classy Frenchmen carried and placed the money in the bag. He looked at me. “Do you want me to drop you off at your barracks?”

“I think it will be better if I walk. It will be more discreet.” I held my hand out to Jack gray suit and Peter blue suit. “Thank you, gentlemen,” I said, and shook hands French style, one pump up and one pump down.

10

Sergeant Felder was at the barracks garage when I came in. He looked smilingly at me. “I heard you took an apartment with a stripper working at the Blue Note.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Jesus, is that all you guys have to do, watch what I’m doing?”

“A couple of the guys saw you going out with her.” He laughed. “Does your rent include fucking privileges? She is a hot-looking cunt.”

“It’s a rental, not a romance,” I said. “Her boss at the club owns the apartment and rented me half of it.”

“Some guys have all the luck.” Felder smiled.

“That’s enough of the bullshit,” I said. “Any new cars come in?”

“Only those that we’ve had in the past few weeks. Nothing new just now. We can finish off the two cars that we promised. But after that we’re fucked.”

“What if we had ten cars a week—could we ship out that many a week?” I looked at him.

“To finish out ten cars a week…” He thought for a few moments. “We would have to have fourteen cars in stock so that we could use them for repair parts. And we would need twice as many mechanics here to do that much work.”

I looked at him silently.

He stared at me. “You have an idea?”

“I can set it up,” I said, nodding. “You just give me a list of personnel that we need and I will send the request up to headquarters.”

“You’ll get it, just like that.” He was impressed. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“Connections.” I laughed. “Now get on it. We’ll all make some loot over this.”

I walked over to the company clerk’s office. I looked at him working. He was a college man and thought he knew better than any of us because he was a business major in college, but as far as I was concerned he was nothing but a schmuck secretary. “The old man in yet?” I asked.

“He doesn’t come in until eleven hundred hours,” he said.

“Would you call me when he shows up?” I asked.

“Sure, Cooper,” he said. “Hey, I heard you shacked up with the stripper from the Blue Note.”

“There are no damn secrets around here.” I laughed. “But don’t worry, I’m not going to ask the old man to give me marrying papers.”

“Is she hot?” he asked.

“They’re all hot,” I said. “Don’t forget there’s been a war on for a long time.”

“I wish I had your luck,” he said. “The only thing I get is paid pussy. And half the time I’m afraid I’ll wind up with the clap.”

“You don’t send French letters through the mail, you know.” I laughed. “Just remember to check with me when the old man gets in.”

When it meant money Felder was right on the job. By the time I got back to his desk, he had a list of ten mechanics, all specialists in rebuilding jeeps. They had worked with him at different times during the last six months. “They are all that I can think of,” he said. “I could use maybe another six men.”