Sandman

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘One empty safe …? Ah! messieurs, the vault in the cellars was not touched, as I have only just informed you.’

  Kohler let him have it – St-Cyr knew he would. ‘Then why weren’t the little safes out front emptied and their contents locked away below? Isn’t that the normal procedure at the close of each day?’

  There wasn’t a ruffle of discomposure. ‘The pressures of business. The shortages of suitable staff. It’s understandable, is it not?’

  ‘Five millions,’ grunted Louis.

  ‘Perhaps a little more,’ conceded Laviolette. ‘When we have the final figure we will, of course, be quite willing to divulge it.’

  How good of him. ‘Ten at least, Louis.’

  ‘The insurance, Hermann.’

  They turned to leave the office. ‘Messieurs …’ bleated the sales clerk. ‘The cigarette case … It … it has only had the deposit.’

  ‘Tack it on to the rest, eh? Lose it if you have to.’ Kohler slid the thing deeply into the left pocket of the greatcoat that, had he worn a helmet instead of a broad-brimmed grey fedora, would have made his appearance all the more formidable.

  Touching a forefinger lightly to his lips and shaking his head, he whispered, ‘Don’t even mention it to the detective out front. It would only upset him.’

  The vault was indeed inviolable. Even tunnelling under it would have been of no use. ‘He had to have known the staff had become complacent, Hermann, and that things were being carelessly left overnight in the safes upstairs.’

  ‘Someone has to have looked the place over for him. A woman, no doubt. One who could have made several visits. This piece, that piece …’

  ‘See if there’s a record of the clientele. Try for a singer, for Mademoiselle Thélème. The shop is on her way to the Ritz.’

  ‘Done, but why did the son of a bitch leave the cigarette case behind? He must have known they’d have it ready? He’d have had access to the office and to the sous-directeur’s desk during the robbery.’

  ‘Perhaps our Gypsy was too busy. Perhaps it was only a means to his looking the place over and to hot-wiring the burglar alarm.’

  ‘Perhaps he simply forgot it in the rush,’ said Kohler, lost to it.

  ‘Then why have it inscribed in such a manner?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking myself, Louis. Why did he deliberately go out of his way to identify himself with the Rom while wearing the uniform of those who must at least officially hate them?’

  The house at 3 rue Laurence-Savart was in Belleville, on a street so narrow, the canyon of it threw up the sound of the retreating Citroën.

  As Hermann reached the corner of the rue des Pyrénées, the tyres screeched and that splendid traction avant grabbed icy paving stones. Then the car shot deeply into the city St-Cyr loved, and he heard it approach the Seine – yes, yes, there it was – after which it reached place Saint-André-des-Arts and coasted quietly up to the house on the rue Suger. Five minutes flat, from here to there. No traffic. There seldom was at any time of day or night, and in ten minutes one could cross the city from suburb to suburb. The cars all gone. 350,000 of them reduced to 4500 or less; 60,000 cubic metres of gasoline a month reduced to an allocation of less than 600.

  As one of the Occupier, control of the Citroën had passed instantly into Hermann’s hands. They were capable, of course, and occasionally Hermann did let him drive his own car just so that he wouldn’t forget how to. And yes, they had become friends in spite of it and of everything else. Two lost souls from opposite sides of the war, thrown together by the never-ending battle against common crime.

  ‘War does things like that,’ he said aloud and to no one but the darkness of the street. ‘We’re like a horseshoe magnet whose opposing poles agree to sweep up the iron filings. All of them.’

  The city proper held about 2,300,000; the suburbs perhaps another 500,000 and yet, even with 300,000 or so of the Occupier, on any night at this hour or just after curfew it was so quiet it was uncomfortable. And at 4.47 Berlin Time, it was all but ready for the first sounds of those departing for work. Not a light showed, and the time in winter was one ungodly hour earlier than the old time; in summer it was two.

  Boots would soon squeak in the twenty degrees of frost. The open-toed, wooden-heeled shoes of the salesgirls, usherettes and secretaries would click-clack harshly, though most had long since lost interest in how they looked or in trying to find a husband, what with so many of the young men either dead or locked up in POW camps in the Reich.

  After more than two and a half years of Occupation, nearly three and a half of war, hunger was on everyone’s mind unless some fiddle had been worked, or one slept with the enemy or had one living in the house. The system of rationing had never worked and had been open to so much abuse, most existed on less than 1500 calories a day.

  Yet they had to get up at 4 a.m. the old time, six days a week.

  He turned his back on the city. He went into the stone-cold house, saying softly, ‘Marianne, it’s me …’ only to stop himself, to remember that she was not asleep upstairs but dead. ‘Ah merde, I’ve got to watch myself,’ he said. Fortunately there were still a few splintered boards left from the explosion that had killed her and their little son. Hermann had had the Todt Organization repair the damage. With pages torn from About’s The King of the Mountains – a tragedy to destroy it – he lit a fire in the kitchen stove.

  And searching the barren cupboards found, at last, one forgotten cube of bouillon.

  ‘Things like this build character – isn’t that what you always said, maman?’ he cried out for it was her house. It had always been hers even after she had passed away, and hadn’t that been part of the trouble with the first wife and with the second?

  ‘No. It was the long absences. The work. The profession, and I was determined to succeed, but if one does not climb the ladder, one soon slides down it.’

  Flames lit up the room and, cursing himself, he ran to draw the black-out curtains Madame Courbet across the street had thoughtfully left open to brighten the place while cleaning it.

  The Gypsy had done the Ritz robbery between 8.15 and 8.47 p.m., Monday, but the flic who had found Cartier’s front door open had not done so until today at 0127 hours. Lots of time, then, for the Gypsy to have been as thorough as possible, yet he had left things behind, had definitely not taken all he could have.

  ‘And that’, breathed St-Cyr, ‘is a puzzle, unless he was trying to tell us something.’

  The bouillon cube was old and so dry he had to remove a shoe to smash it with the heel, only to worry about damaging the footwear. Scraping the crumbs into a hand with the blade of a dinner knife, he fed them to the pot from the surface of whose cup of water rose the first tendrils of steam.

  More wood was added to the stove, and from his pockets, guiltily now, the half-dozen lumps of coal Hermann had pilfered unseen from the cellars of the building that housed Cartier’s.

  Hermann had kept six for himself – he was like that. He wouldn’t take what was his right as one of the Occupier, the Citroën excepted, and certain of his meals. He would go without but ‘borrow’ from those who had.

  Idly St-Cyr wondered if his partner had picked up a little bauble or two for Giselle and Oona. Underwear, yes – silk stockings if they could be spared and the victim found in such a state only one pair would be necessary for the funeral if the coffin was to be left open. If.

  ‘But why Cartier’s?’ he asked himself, removing his overcoat at last but keeping the scarf tightly wrapped around his throat, the chest covered thickly. The flu … one never relaxed one’s vigilance for it was serious. So many had died of it last winter.

  Cartier’s was close to the Ritz but Van Cleef and Arpels was on place Vendôme and much closer, other world-famous jewellers too, yet the Gypsy had settled on that one.

  He had left the cigarette case for them to find – St-Cyr was certain of this but as yet had no proof. ‘Tshaya,’ he said, and blowing on the cup of bouillon, ‘Vadni rats
a.’

  Kohler heard the telephone ringing its heart out in the hall downstairs. The sound rose up the stairwell floor by Christly floor until, tearing himself out of bed, he ran to stop it. Down, down the stairs, he pitching through the darkness rather than have Madame Clicquot bitch at him any more. The rent, the lack of coal – ‘Why will you not see that we receive our proper share?’ Et cetera.

  They collided. The candle stub flew out of her hands; the stench of garlic, onions and positively no bathing was ripe with fortitude. ‘Monsieur …’ she exhaled.

  ‘Madame, forgive me. Allô … Allô … Operator, put the bastard on. Gestapo … yes, I’m Gestapo, eh? so don’t take offence and hang up.’

  ‘Louis … Louis, what the hell is it this time?’

  A moment was taken. And then, ‘Cartier’s, Hermann. The Opéra, June of 1910 and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. The Schéhérazade. The Thousand and One Nights, The Arabian Nights.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I was there with my parents. It was magnificent!’

  ‘I’m still listening.’

  ‘Bakst put such colours into the décor. Nijinsky was the black slave.’

  ‘Continue.’

  ‘Louis Cartier, the grandson, was so impressed he revolutionized Cartier’s style and the way we see gems and semiprecious stones. He and his assistant, Charles Jacqueau, began to create what were then very daring combinations of onyx, jet or pearl and diamond, with malachite, jade and amethyst or lapis lazuli. That’s why he hit Cartier’s.’

  ‘You’re not serious.’

  ‘The Club Schéhérazade, idiot! Tshaya, Hermann. Nana Thélème. She was wearing a dress with stag-horn buttons and a belt of goid links. Those are gypsy things. Their most powerful talismans are not man-made but natural. A polished bit of antler, a beach pebble bearing its tiny fossil …’

  ‘A plaque of amber with its entrapped fly, eh? Hey, mon vieux, I’m going back to bed. Your French logic is just too much for me!’

  Tshaya was Nana Thélème? Ah! Louis was crazy. Too tired, too overwrought.

  The flat was freezing. Giselle wore three sweaters and two pairs of woollen trousers, kneesocks, gloves and a toque. Oona also.

  There was no room for him in the bed – there hadn’t been when he had arrived home. Ah! the three of them didn’t share the same bed. Those two would never have put up with anything like that! not even in this weather …

  Oona’s bed was freezing and when he had settled back into it, he knew Giselle would accuse him of favouritism and that she wouldn’t listen to his protests even though her bed had been fully occupied.

  He was just drifting off to the tolling of the Bibliothèque Nationale’s five o’clock bell some, distance across the river, when Oona slid in beside him to fan the flames of jealousy into a little fire of their own.

  ‘Kiss me,’ she said. ‘Hold me. I’m worried.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘Another seven and a half months? Perhaps. It all depends on Giselle, doesn’t it?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘Only that she’s the one who’s expecting, not me. You were thoughtless, Hermann. You got carried away and did not take precautions.’

  ‘It’s the war. It’s those lousy capotes anglaises they hand out. Someone’s been sabotaging them.’

  The condoms. Long ago in Paris the Englishmen had worn rubber coats with hoods, and the French had given the name to that most necessary of garments.

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ she murmured, snuggling closely for comfort, ‘but, then, perhaps not.’

  When she awakened, he was sitting on the edge of the bed, wrapped in his greatcoat, gloves and fedora, smoking a cigarette, and she knew he’d been like that ever since. Unfortunately he had had to be told things and, yes, unfortunately she had had to be the one to have to tell him. ‘A woman notices such things, Hermann. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. Hey, you were right to tell me. Giselle wouldn’t have.’

  11 rue des Saussaies was bleak at any hour but especially so in winter as the sun struggled to rise. Its grey stone walls and iron grilles were webbed with frost. The courtyard’s snow had been packed hard by the traffic of the previous night.

  Gestapo plain clothes came and went in a hurry always. A panier à salade languished, the salad shaker,* having emptied its guts at 3 or 4 a.m. A wireless tracking van drew in to report after a hard night’s trying to get a fix on a clandestine transceiver. Had they zeroed in on someone? wondered Kohler. Those boys didn’t work out of here, so their presence had to mean something was up.

  Black Citroëns were in a row with black Renaults, Fords and Peugeots, black everything and hated, too, because like the trench coats and the briefcases of the plain clothes, they were a symbol of what this place had become.

  Once the Headquarters of the Sûreté Nationale, it was now that of the Gestapo in France yet had retained all of the attributes and successes of the former, particularly a records section which was second to none, even to that of the Sicherheitsdienst in Berlin.

  Kohler coughed. Louis hunched his shoulders and pulled up his overcoat collar before saying, ‘To business then, and stop worrying, eh? Everyone knows that without sufficient food, the female body loses its ability to menstruate. Treat Giselle to some good black-market meals. Include Oona. Stop being so pious. See if it doesn’t help. Load the larder. Use your privileges and your head, and suit-up before you have another go at either of them!’

  Father Time and no patience, no sympathy at all! Louis had always gone on about Giselle’s returning to her former profession, to the house of Madame Chabot on the rue Danton, which was just around the corner from the flat and a constant reminder. ‘Oona’s positive.’

  Ah, pour I ‘amour de Dieul what was one to do? Drag along this worried papa-to-be who was old enough to have been the girl’s grandfather? ‘I can’t have you distracted, Hermann. Not with the Gypsy. Besides, Pharand wants to see me. He’s insisting.’

  ‘Then quit fussing. Hey, I’ll take care of that little Croix de feu for you. Just watch my dust!’

  The Croix de feu were one of the notorious right-wing, fascist groups from the thirties. Kohler went in first, Louis followed, but when they reached the Major’s office, the Bavarian left his partner out of sight in the corridor and shot in to ask, ‘Have you seen St-Cyr?’

  The secretary spilled her boss’s coffee. A Chinese porcelain vase went over – a priceless thing – and she cried out in dismay even as he righted it only to hear Pharand hiss from his inner sanctum, ‘Not in, eh? and at 0900 hours! It’s les hirondelles for him.’

  The swallows … the bicycle patrols in their capes and képis. ‘Why not the pussy patrol?’ sang out Kohler.

  Louis’s boss came to stand in the doorway. ‘Enough of your shit, Hauptsturmführer. Where is he?’

  That’s what I’m asking.’

  The carefully trimmed black pencil of the Major’s moustache twitched. The rounded cheeks were sallow and unhealthy in winter, though they’d always been like that. The short black hair of this little fascist was glued in place with scented pomade and splashes of joli Soir, the dark brown eyes were alive with barely controlled fury.

  ‘He was to see me first. A report is forthcoming. Orders are orders, is that not right, Hauptsturmführer? The Ritz, then Cartier’s and now … why now … Ah! you did not know of it, did you?’

  The bastard …

  The pudgy hands came together as if squeezing the joy out of his little triumph. At fifty-eight years of age, Osias Pharand still had his friends in the upper echelons and hadn’t wasted them. Readily he had moved out of his plush office – had given it up to Gestapo Boemelburg and had willingly shifted his ass down the hall. Taken his lumps because he had known the French would run things anyway, and had cluttered the den with the trivia of his years in Indochina and other places.

  A stint as director of the Sûreté’s Deuxième bureau des nomades had been a big step to the top – y
ou’d think he’d have come to appreciate the gypsies for having provided so many rungs in the ladder but no, he hated them as much as he hated the Jews. But for the Resistance, for the so-called ‘terrorists’, he reserved an unequalled passion.

  ‘Bring St-Cyr in here now,’ he said.

  The air was full of trouble but Kohler couldn’t resist taunting him. ‘He’s probably with Boemelburg already. The IKPK, eh? Hey, the two of them worked together before the war. They’re old friends, or had you forgotten?’

  ‘Never! Not for a moment. It’s the only thing that saves him but with this …’ Pharand toyed with the fish. ‘With this, I do not think even that will be enough. The matter demands special treatment – Sonderbehandlung, or had you forgotten?’

  ‘Maître Pharand …’

  ‘Ah! I’ve got your attention at last. Another robbery. A big one, eh? Now piss off. Go on. Get out. Leave this sort of work to those best suited for it. Let me live with my secrets until they become your partner’s demise. Perhaps then he will understand that it is to me that he owes his loyalty and his job. I could have helped you both.’

  Boemelburg was not happy. ‘The Gare Saint-Lazare. The ticket-agent’s office. That idiot of an agent-directeur didn’t bother to deposit last week’s receipts or those of the week before. Apparently he does it only once a month.’

  ‘But … but there are always those on duty, Walter? A station so huge … Traffic never stops …’ insisted St-Cyr.

  A stumpy forefinger was raised. ‘Passenger traffic does stop, as you well know. Those arriving must wait until the curfew is over; those departing must purchase their tickets before it begins. The wickets are then closed, the receipts tallied and put away in the safe, and the office locked.’

  ‘How much did he get?’ asked Kohler, dismayed by the speed with which the Gypsy was working.

  The rheum-filled Nordic eyes seemed saddened, as if in assessing them, Boemelburg was cognizant of certain truths. A flagrant patriotism in St-Cyr, questionable friends, a rebellious nature in Kohler, among other things. ‘682,000 francs in 100 and 500 franc notes. He left the rest.’