The Second Objective (37 page)

What is this?

A priest appeared at his side. Was he all right?

Yes, yes, he just needed a rest.

Von Leinsdorf slid into a pew and let his eyes drift up and around the chapel. He vaguely remembered that this was the oldest church in Paris. A bank of windows on one side had been shattered by a bomb, and he could see a storm drawing into the late afternoon sky above. He closed his eyes for a moment.

When he opened them again, he saw through the broken windows that the sky had turned pitch black. He glanced at his watch. Over an hour had vanished. He looked around, startled. The music had stopped, the choir was gone. The same priest was talking with a gendarme at the back of the church. Von Leinsdorf got up quickly, gathered his things, and walked out.

33

Montmartre

DECEMBER 19, 6:30
P.M.

E
ddie Bennings heard him on the stairs before he came through the door. Von Leinsdorf was wearing a long greatcoat when he entered their garret and he immediately went into the second room to change. Bennings, who was pitching pennies against a bare wall in the front room, under the light of the room’s only lamp, never saw the British uniform.

“Where you been, Dick? I was starting to worry,” said Eddie.

“Nothing to worry about,” said Von Leinsdorf from the other room. “Making arrangements. What was your day like?”

“Boring. Just sitting around on my ass.”

Bennings had decided not to mention his own outing that morning. He picked up
Stars and Stripes
while he waited and made conversation.

“Did you hear they can’t find Glenn Miller? They think his plane went down over the Channel.”

“When did that happen?”

Von Leinsdorf came out dressed in civilian clothes. He carried a greatcoat and was using a needle and thread to sew a flap inside its left front panel. Bennings glanced at him without curiosity and went back to his paper.

“Don’t know. Last few days. On his way to Paris to organize a Christmas concert.”

“Was it the Krauts?” asked Von Leinsdorf.

“Had to be. Crying shame, isn’t it? You know how many times that guy’s music got me laid? I got no quarrel with the Krauts, but I’d like to get my hands on the punks who did this. Man, I’m starving. Haven’t been out all day.”

“Where did you get the newspaper?”

“Found it downstairs.”

“So you did go out,” said Von Leinsdorf.

“I went out once, briefly, for a pack of cigarettes.”

Von Leinsdorf moved to the window and looked out the curtains. The clouds had lowered and the rain that had threatened was starting to fall.

“Did you speak to anyone?”

“No, Christ, no. You want to get something to eat? What time we meeting him?”

“Seven.”

“What time is it now?”

“Half past six.”

Von Leinsdorf saw two men standing across the street from the entrance to the building. Both were looking up at the attic window. He turned off the lamp inside the room, retrieved his binoculars, and took a closer look at them.

A gendarme and a smaller, swarthy-faced man, a civilian. Both unfamiliar. Not who he’d expected.

“Something wrong?” asked Eddie.

“I don’t know yet.”

“So what do you say we grab some grub?”

“We’ll get something at the club.”

When they walked outside and started down the hill through the winding streets toward Ververt’s club, the two men across the street were gone. They arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule, tapped on the front window, and waited for someone to appear. Von Leinsdorf knew they were being followed, probably by the gendarme and his companion, but never caught a glimpse of them. One of Ververt’s men opened the front door of the jazz club and they went inside.

Ververt sat at his table near the kitchen. He asked if they were hungry, more hospitable this time, as one of the men set down a bottle of red wine and a platter of bread, cheese, and green olives. Ververt asked to hear their proposal, and he listened carefully, saying nothing while Eddie laid out the details of the Christmas train job.

“How many trucks do we need?” asked Ververt when Eddie was done.

“That’s up to you,” said Eddie. “We can fill two or three.”

“What time do they need to leave Paris?”

“We need a ride to the depot,” said Von Leinsdorf. “We have to be there by midnight, so we should be on the road by nine. Have them meet us at the Invalides metro stop. They drop us at the yard, then drive back into Versailles.”

“We’ll hook up on the spur line at three when we bring the train in to load up,” said Eddie.

“How long will that take?”

“Once the train’s there, not more than an hour. The trucks should be back in the city by first light.”

Ververt looked at his cigarette. “What about security on the train?”

“We’ve got that covered out of our end.”

“And the money?”

“Fifty thousand,” said Eddie. “Half now, half on delivery.”

Ververt flicked his cigarette, a gesture of disdain. “I don’t know what I’m buying.”

“We’ve got to take care of the boys on the train before they’ll open it up,” said Eddie.

“Why should that be my concern?” asked Ververt.

“Because otherwise we don’t have a deal,” said Von Leinsdorf.

Ververt poured himself another glass of pastis. He nodded to one of his men, who stepped forward and set a gray strongbox down on the table. Ververt opened it and counted out ten thousand American dollars.

“The rest when we finish loading the trucks,” he said.

The money sat on the table between them for a long beat. Ververt closed the strongbox to punctuate the finality of the offer. Finally, Von Leinsdorf reached over and picked up the money.

“Coffee?” asked Ververt.

The corrupt patrolman and the pimp had been taken aback by the appearance of the second man, who arrived at the rooming house soon after they took up their surveillance. They assumed he was another American deserter, and decided to alter their approach. Instead of charging up to the garret, they waited and followed the men, when they left their building, to a jazz club owned by a notorious local gangster. They observed them through a window, sitting down with Ververt. The connection to Ververt made the pimp question the wisdom of taking these two down, but the patrolman, who had collected payoffs from the Corsican for years, felt more certain than before that they were viable targets. These were unknown players with no local standing. Ververt was probably setting them up for a sting, so they might as well beat him to it.

Shortly after seven o’clock at the Hotel Meurice, a British major marched down to the front desk in his bathrobe and registered a noisy complaint about a missing dress uniform that he had sent for cleaning the previous day. Bernie and Grannit were on the house phones, calling each resident officer, working their way through the registration cards, when they overheard the major’s tirade.

So did an Algerian chambermaid, who was standing in a nearby line of employees waiting to be questioned by the hotel’s chief of security. She stepped forward to say she remembered seeing a valet returning a major’s uniform earlier that day on the fourth floor. The major’s anger went up a few decibels—he was staying on the
second
floor, so why the bloody hell was his uniform being delivered on the
fourth
floor? The major then answered his own question: because theft was rampant in this bloody hotel, that was why, because of the overwhelming presence in this city of the bloody Wogs.

“Just another reminder that the Wogs begin at Calais,” he was heard to say.

The chief of security called Grannit over to hear the maid’s story, and inserted himself between them.

The maid, sensitive to the major’s racism, mentioned that this valet was a man she had never seen in the hotel before, but not that he’d given her five dollars after she’d opened a room for him with her pass key. She failed to recall which room it was.

Grannit and Bernie pulled registration cards for every officer staying on the fourth floor. Five new arrivals had checked in that day, and Grannit called each room from the switchboard. Two of the men were in their rooms. Grannit identified himself and asked them to come down to the lobby for questioning. Three did not answer. Two of those room keys rested in their pigeonholes on the rack behind the desk, so those men were reasonably assumed to be out of the hotel.

One key was missing, room 417, registered to a Lieutenant Alan Pearson, who according to his card had checked in shortly after noon. One of the clerks behind the desk then remembered that Lieutenant Pearson had come back from lunch shortly thereafter looking the worse for wear from drink, in the company of another British officer who had asked for the key to 417 and then helped him upstairs.

“Who was this other man?”

A major, he thought. Pressed for details, the clerk recalled only that the major wore a black eye patch, although he couldn’t say for certain which eye it covered, and that was all he could remember about him.

“That’s exactly why he wore it,” said Grannit.

Seconds later, Grannit and Bernie were in the elevator, accompanied by the manager and the hotel’s chief of security.

Von Leinsdorf and Eddie Bennings walked back up the hill, heads down, collars raised against the cold as the freezing rain gave way to snow. Large, fragile flakes danced down in isolation. Von Leinsdorf stopped for a moment to look up at them.

Like the discharge from the smokestack of the crematorium.

“You all right, chief?” asked Eddie, looking back at him.

Von Leinsdorf had always prided himself on his ability to shut off memories of the camp, all the unwanted pieces of his past, partition them from his waking mind. Now they were punching through those walls with alarming frequency. He didn’t know what it signified, but it left him reeling.

“Yes, fine.”

They continued, turning the corner into the narrow covered entrance to their rooming house. Von Leinsdorf pulled Eddie back into the shadows against the wall of the building. Moments later, the two men Von Leinsdorf had earlier seen standing outside their building stepped forward. One of them held a handgun and barked at them in French.

“Speak English,” said Von Leinsdorf.

“Paris police. Put your hands against the building.”

Von Leinsdorf took a step forward, shoving his hands down into the pockets of his raincoat. “I’d like to see a badge first.”

The policeman took another step toward them. “Do as you are told.”

Eddie started to turn around, but Von Leinsdorf stopped him with his voice. “We’re not doing anything until we see a badge.”

The policeman seemed thwarted by his lack of respect. The pimp stepped forward with a snarl, unfolding a straight razor from his pocket.

“
Faites ce qu’il dit, chien!
” He took a few threatening steps toward Eddie. “
Vous ne payez pas, ainsi nous vous faisons!
”

“What the fuck is your problem?”

“He said you didn’t pay so he’s going to
make
you pay,” said Von Leinsdorf. “What’s he talking about?”

Eddie swallowed hard and blinked, but didn’t answer.

“Nobody move,” said a distinctly American voice. “Any of you.”

A man in a trench coat and hat stepped into view in the street just outside the passage behind Von Leinsdorf, holding with both hands a Colt .45 and a flashlight lined up against its barrel. The gendarme turned toward the newcomer, irritated.

“This is a police matter,” said the gendarme.

The man swung the flashlight onto the gendarme. “Put your gun down on the ground and we’ll talk about it.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Military police.”

“Good news,” said Von Leinsdorf, pulling a badge from his pocket. “So are we. Criminal Investigation Division.”

Eddie’s head swiveled back and forth, trying to keep up.

The officer pointed his light on Von Leinsdorf and the badge he was holding. “Toss that over here. The rest of you put your weapons on the ground and kick them toward me. Right now.”

Von Leinsdorf threw the badge toward the feet of the MP. The gendarme and the pimp laid the gun and razor on the ground and kicked them in his direction.

“Get down on your hands and knees,” he said.

The Frenchmen obeyed. Before he picked up Von Leinsdorf’s badge, the MP slid his light over onto Eddie Bennings.

“Who the hell are you?” he asked.

“I’m with him,” said Bennings, pointing to Von Leinsdorf.

“A cooperative witness helping with our investigation,” said Von Leinsdorf. “I’ve got his ID right here. These guys are cops, like they said, and they’re dirty as hell.”

“That is what
we
are doing,” said the gendarme, pointing at Von Leinsdorf. “
They
are deserters, black marketers—”

Bennings glanced down and saw Von Leinsdorf pulling the pistol from his pocket, and a moment later the narrow corridor erupted in gunfire.