This time, I ran into him in Paris. My newspaper had transferred me back there after an absence of almost eight years, and this particular day, I was walking morosely back from the office to my hotel, reflecting unhappily on the changes that had taken place in the city since I was last there. I was edging past a crowded sidewalk café when an arm reached out to detain me. I turned and found myself staring into Kek Huuygens’ smiling eyes.
“Have a seat,” he said calmly, almost as if it had been but hours since we had met instead of at least three years—and that time across an ocean. He raised a beckoning arm for the waiter, his eyes never leaving my face. “The last time I saw you, I was unfortunate enough to have to ask you to buy me a drink. Allow me to repay you.”
“Kek Huuygens!” I exclaimed delightedly, and dropped into a chair at his side. Besides being excellent company, Huuygens has always been good for copy, and one of the changes in Paris that had discouraged me was the very lack of copy; Frenchmen, in my absence, had seemingly become civilized. My eyebrows raised as my glance flickered over the figure across from me. The excellent cut of his obviously expensive suit, the jaunty angle of his Homburg, the trim insolence of his mustache, not to mention the freshness of his boutonniere at that late hour of the afternoon, all were in sharp contrast to his appearance the last time I had seen him in New York.
His eyes followed my inspection with sardonic amusement. “What will you have to drink?”
“A brandy,” I said, grinning at him. I allowed my grin to fade into a rather doubtful grimace; one thing I thought I had learned about Huuygens was how to jar a story out of him. I ran my eye over him again. “Illegality seems to be more profitable than when last we met.”
He placed my order with the waiter who had finally appeared, and then returned his attention to me. “On the contrary,” he said with a faint smile. “I finally took the advice of all my well-meaning friends and discovered, to my complete astonishment, that the rewards of being on the side of the law can be far greater than I had ever anticipated.”
“Oh?” I tried not to sound sceptical.
His eyes twinkled at my poor attempt at deception. “I shall not keep it a secret from you,” he said drily. “I am forced, however, to ask you to keep what I am about to tell you a secret from everyone else.”
I stared at him. “But why?” I asked unhappily.
“In the interests of that law and order you are always extolling,” he replied even more drily. We waited in silence while the waiter placed my brandy before me; he slipped the saucer onto Huuygens’ pile and disappeared. Kek’s eyes were steady upon my face. I shrugged, raised my glass in a small gesture of defeat, and sipped. Huuygens nodded, satisfied with my implied promise, and leaned back.
Now that I realize the benefits that can derive from honesty (Huuygens said smiling in my direction), I shall have to review America again in a different light. However, just after I last saw you, I had not as yet been converted, and since it becomes increasingly embarrassing to sponge on friends, I managed to return to France where I have a cousin I actually enjoy sponging on. Immediately following the war, he and I were sort of partners in black-market foodstuffs, but we split up when I realized that the man was completely dishonest. Besides, in those days, they were beginning to impose the death penalty for this particular naughtiness, and there are limits to the extent I will indulge in gambling—especially with my life.
In any event, there must have been something about foodstuffs that attracted my cousin, because when I got back to Paris, I found he had turned to legality with a vengeance, and was the owner of a chain of what have become known throughout the world as supermarkets. I personally cannot understand the success of these sterile, automated dispensers of comestibles, all so daintily packed in transparent plastic—especially in France, since it is obviously impossible to haggle with a price stamped in purple ink on the bottom of a tin. However, there it is; the fact was that my cousin was rolling in money. And while he was far from pleased to add me to his ménage, even temporarily, there was very little he could do about it. Normally, I hate to stoop to threatening a man with his past, but in his case, it took no great appeasement of my conscience.
For a while, I thought his wife would prove an even greater obstacle. She was built like a corseted Brahma bull, with a trailing mustache, an eye like a laser beam, and a voice that made me think of nothing so much as a shovel being dragged across rough concrete. However, he apparently explained to her the alternatives to my presence, and after that, she was actually quite innocuous.
Do not think that I was pleased myself to be in this position of practically begging, but there was nothing else I could do. Even the most modest of schemes requires capital, and I was broke. And while I could bring myself to accept—and even insist upon—my cousin’s hospitality, I could not use my knowledge of his past to extract money from him. It would have been against my principles. However, the situation wasn’t all bad; my cousin had a fine cook, a nubile and willing housemaid, an extensive library and an excellent cellar, so I found myself settling in quite comfortably and actually even in danger of vegetating.
One evening, however, my cousin returned home in a preoccupied mood. Throughout dinner, a time he usually spent in alternately stuffing himself and listing his assets, he sat quiet and scowling at his plate, nor did he touch his dessert. Something was obviously wrong, and on the offhand chance that it might involve me or my sinecure in his home, I nailed him immediately after dinner in the library.
“Stavros,” I said—you must understand that while both of us were Poles, and I had long since adopted the fiction of being Dutch, my cousin, for reasons I cannot attempt to explain, preferred the pretense of a Greek background. Maybe it was useful in his business. But I digress. In any event, I said, “Stavros, something is bothering you. Can I be of any assistance to you?”
He began to wave his hand in a fashion to indicate denial, and then he suddenly paused and stared at me thoughtfully through narrowed eyes. “Do you know,” he said slowly, “possibly you can. Certainly if there is some scheme here, some attempt to be over-clever, you would be the ideal one to ferret it out.”
“Scheme?” I asked, and poured myself a generous brandy. I sat down opposite him. “What are you talking about?”
He hesitated as if reluctant to take me into his confidence, but then the weight of his problem overcame his irresolution. He leaned forward. “Do you know anything about supermarkets?”
My eyebrows raised. I was about to give him the same opinions I have just voiced to you, but then I realized it would serve no purpose. “No,” I said simply. “I know that people serve themselves from shelves and pass before a clerk who sums up their purchases. They pay and take the stuff with them. That’s all I do know.”
He nodded. “And that’s all you should know. Or anyone should know. But somebody appears to know something else.” He paused a moment and then leaned forward again. “Kek, in the supermarket business, we are used to pilfering—small items that women put into their purses, or tuck into a baby carriage beneath the blankets; things that children steal and sometimes eat right in the store, or hide in their boots—”
“Horrible!” I murmured.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But—and this is the important thing—we can calculate to the merest fraction of a per cent the exact amount we will lose through this thievery. It is done scientifically, on computers, based on multiple experiences and probability curves, and these calculations are never wrong.” He sighed helplessly. “I mean, they were never wrong before. But now—my God!”
“Tell me,” I suggested.
“Yes,” he said more calmly. “Well, in our largest store, the percentages have gone absolutely berserk! Stealing on a scale that is impossible! And the frightening thing is that we don’t know how it is done!” He pounded one fist against his forehead in desperation. “I have received the report from the detective agency today. I have had detectives pose as customers, as cashiers, as clerks unlo
ading cartons or stamping prices on tins. I have had the store watched, day and night, both from the outside and the inside, week after week—and yet, it continues. I have done everything possible, and now, I am about to go out of my mind. If somebody has discovered a method of pilfering that our system cannot cope with …” He shrugged fatalistically and shivered.
He did not have to spell it out for me. I reached over for the bottle of brandy, nodding sympathetically. “And how does your system work?” I wanted to know.
He got to his feet and began to pace back and forth across the thick rug of the library. It was evident that the subject was close to his heart, and had he been delineating success rather than failure, his attitude could only have been described as enthusiastic.
“This store has eight check-out counters,” he said. “At each is stationed a clerk who punches the keys of the cash register for each purchase. These figures are reproduced on a continuous tape within the register, and no one has access to this record except the head auditor in the main office. The manager of the store removes it.…” He saw my eyes light up and shook his head. “No. The manager removes a small box that contains the tape, but he cannot open this box. He sends the boxes in daily, together with the cash he has collected, and they always balance.”
He paused and then raised a finger in a slight gesture, as if equating one thing with another. “At the same time, we have our constant inventory control of the stocks, and these are also in the hands of people not connected with the individual store, and people of utmost confidence. And we also employ an outside firm of auditors to spot-check these stocks from time to time. Of late, I have had them checking daily.” He raised his two hands, palms upwards. “A comparison of the register tapes and the inventory records indicates the unseen losses which, as I say, are completely calculable. At least, in every store in the chain except this one.”
“But, surely,” I said. “A dishonest clerk …”
He shook his head. “We follow the establishment procedures of the American supermarkets, and to steal from a supermarket on a large scale is far from being as simple as it may appear to you at first. Believe me.”
Knowing him, I believed him. “What can I do to help you?”
He frowned. “I honestly don’t know. But someone has apparently discovered a means of pilfering, of swindling us, that we cannot resolve. And since your experience—” He paused and then raised one hand apologetically. “I would not consider asking your help just in return for your—your—” He wanted to say “sponging” but couldn’t bring himself to it; he was never the bravest of men. “Your presence as a guest in my house …” It was weak and he knew it. His voice firmed, but with bitterness behind it. “If you can discover what is going on and put a stop to it, there will be a reward.”
“How great a reward?” I asked quietly. The thing was beginning to intrigue me.
He bit his lip. “One—five—ten thousand francs!” he said.
“They have been doing a job on you, haven’t they?” I said gently.
“Yes,” he replied simply. “They certainly have.”
“Tomorrow, then, I shall be a customer in that store,” I said, and reached over for the bottle of brandy. I admit there was a bit of bravado in my tone, but he said nothing. And so we left it at that.…
Kek Huuygens paused in his tale and peered at me across the table. “Speaking of brandy,” he said politely, “your glass is empty.” He raised a manicured hand for the waiter. “As I recall, on our last visit, I was placed in your debt to the amount of two drinks.”
I stared at him. I was still irritated at having been sworn to secrecy. “If we are all now to be firmly committed to a policy of honesty,” I said a bit shortly, “it was actually three.”
He smiled at me with evident enjoyment of my position. “Then it shall be three. I trust you.”
The waiter came and replenished our glasses. Kek Huuygens sipped from his drink and then leaned back again, remembering.
The following day was a Saturday (Huuygens continued evenly), with weather pleasant enough to allow me to walk, which, considering my financial situation, was just as well. I had offered to do the shopping for the cook in order to appear at the market in the proper guise of a customer, but it seems that owners of supermarkets do not buy at retail. However, I am sure that had she accepted, the funds she would have doled out would have been calculated to a sou to accord with the list she would have furnished. I’m afraid my status in that household was no great secret.
My cousin was then living—and still lives, as a matter of fact—in the Avenue Michelet in St-Ouen, and since the store in question was located in Clichy, the walk really wasn’t too bad. As I strolled along, I put my mind to work on various means of swindling a supermarket, based on the system of security I had had outlined to me the evening before. But I soon abandoned this exercise. To hear my cousin describe it, all standard methods had been thoroughly investigated, and I knew him well enough to know that the scheme would have to be incredibly simple to have escaped his detection.
I am quite serious. I was sure that under the weight of that study, any complicated scheme would have been bound to be discovered; and besides, I have always preferred simple schemes myself. They are the only ones with any chance of success. So I gave up all thought of the matter until I could see the arena of battle in person, and just walked along enjoying the lovely weather.
When I first set eyes on the supermarket, my first thought was that I had taken a wrong turn somewhere and had ended up at the aerodrome of Bourget, because the place looked like nothing so much as a hangar set in the middle of a huge concrete apron. That, of course, was the car park. I had seen similar installations in the States, but I had had no idea that my cousin’s wealth extended to properties of such dimension. For a moment, I felt a twinge of sympathy for the person or persons who were draining a portion of that wealth away, but then I thought of the reward, as well as of my need for it. With a shrug, I pushed through the swinging doors that led to the interior.
I had never been in a supermarket on a Saturday before, and at first, I thought I had inadvertently stumbled onto a riot of some proportion, or possibly a student demonstration, because the place was jammed with noisy people, all apparently going in different directions; but after a moment, I could see that there was a bit of organization to the confusion, and I took a shopping cart and pushed into the melee. I shall never understand why, with so many fine American customs and inventions to choose from, Europeans always seem to select the very worst ones to copy, such as supermarkets, television, or—but again, I digress.
The aisles of the store had arrows mounted above them in a futile effort to get traffic to flow along a rational pattern, but naturally, nobody was paying the slightest attention to them. I managed, by using my shopping cart as a battering ram, to cover about one-third of the store, but I then abandoned it in favor of doing a solo. This involved quite a bit of side-stepping and agile pirouetting, but it did allow me more rapid coverage of the area. Any fears I had had about appearing out of place as a non-shopper were forsaken at once. In that mob, I could have been nude or playing the bagpipe, and still have remained entirely unnoticed for a week.
I took the store, section by section, paying particular heed at first to those clerks who dispensed such non-packaged items as meat and vegetables. I was pleased to note that, despite the regimentation of such modern mechanical means of distribution, fruits were still being mauled, pinched and squeezed in time-honored fashion; but no world-shaking ideas sprang from this observation. I paused to watch young lads hastily piling tins in mounds to replace the attritional inroads of the thundering herd, but other than a forced admiration for their acrobatic skills, nothing came of this. I studied the entrances, the exits, the freezers, the shelves, the window, even—to give you some idea of the bankrupcy of my thoughts—the fans set high in the arched roof above.
Eventually, I worked my way to the front of the store and the check-out counters.
There was a long line of impatient consumers before each one, and so great was the crowd that even the manager had been pressed into service, and was standing over his register at the end of the line, sweating away like the hired help, pounding on the keys. The other check-out clerks were no less busy, but at least they were more attractive. And I do mean attractive—if that is not too light a word for girls that are beautiful. There were three redheads, two brunettes and three blondes; and whoever handled the personnel hiring for my cousin’s chain of supermarkets deserved a merit badge for good taste.
I stood with my back against a precarious mountain of soap boxes and watched their dainty hands fly over the register keys, watched them bend down to pack their sales into paper sacks, noting particularly the gaping of their blouses as they performed these necessary chores. It added nothing toward the solution of my problem, of course, but at least it was a pleasant respite in a day that was beginning to promise nothing but failure. And suddenly remembering that fact brought my mind back to business, and once again, I started back through the aisles.
Well, to make a long story short, I spent another fruitless two hours wandering through that hungry crowd, and for all the good it did, I might just as well have stayed home with the housemaid. I saw, of course, all the obvious possibilities, such as backing a truck up to the rear door and simply carting away a load of things, but I was sure that these had been thoroughly checked. And so, with one last adoring look at the beautiful girls at the check-out counters, I finally gave up and headed back toward my cousin’s home.
I walked slowly, reviewing everything I had seen on my tour of the huge premises, but other than the beauty of the girls, I could think of nothing even worth recalling. As a rule, I do not mind failure; in my life, it has occurred rather frequently and I have learned to be philosophical about it. I did, of course, mind the loss of the ten-thousand-franc reward, but since I saw no way of earning it, I put that thought aside as well, and allowed my memory to drift back to the girls at the check-out counters. And then, all at once, I saw the entire scheme.
Kek Huuygens, Smuggler Page 6