He patted Rick on the arm.“As you know, we have freedom of the press in this country: every man is free to own a press and print what he likes. If he's not inclined to buy the whole newspaper, why, then he can always buy a writer or two. Call my friend Winchell,” he advised.“Give him this, with my compliments.”
He handed Rick a dossier, produced from between the pages of the newspaper. Rick flicked through it and saw it was about Meredith and Salucci. There were letters, papers, photographs, documenting the extent of the mutually beneficial corruption. If this got into the papers, it would be the end of both the senator and the criminal. A play was starting to present itself—the only play that might keep both him and Solly alive.
“Why are you doing this for me?” asked Rick.
O'Hanlon responded to the question with an enigmatic smile.“Although you're perforce not a churchgoing man,” he said,“I nevertheless hope you've learned something from my little sermon today. The moral of which is: Always give your opponent just enough information with which to hang himself. Full disclosure, excepting those bits you don't choose to disclose, and of which no one will be the wiser until it's too late.”
O'Hanlon put on his hat and pulled it down low over his left eye, the way he always did. It was a beautiful piece of fur felt, just the right mixture of beaver and rabbit, dyed light but not quite baby blue. He wore it only on special occasions.
“Walter owes me more than he can ever repay,” said O'Hanlon.“He'll take care of you. The rest you'll have to take care of yourself. If you're as smart as I think you are, you'll know what to do.” He gave Rick a long look.“And if perchance, you're not, then rest assured that these documents will still get to Winchell. For I hate loose ends, boy; to me, they're a mortal sin. And don't I share with Mr. Darwin a belief in the survival of the fittest, no matter what Holy Mother Church may think of his theories?”
O'Hanlon turned the doorknob and stepped soundlessly into the hall.“So long, Mr. Baline, good luck to you and may the best man win,” he said as he disappeared into the shadows of the stairwell.“I’ll be reading the papers, and not just the funnies, either.”
Two minutes later Rick was out the door himself, grabbing the elevator to the ground floor and jumping into his car, which was still parked in front of the building. Within fifteen minutes he was pulling up in front of the 45th Street offices of the New York Mirror and dashing into the lobby like a madman.
“Where's Winchell?” he shouted at a guard.
“Second floor,” said the guard. He'd seen plenty of nutcases charge into the building before, and they all wanted to see Winchell.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Louis Renault had checked into the U TrÍ PŠtrosu around noon under the name of Louis Boucher. He rang Rick's room but was told“Mr. Lindquist” was at lunch. He strolled outside and took the air, among other things.
Plopping himself in an easy chair upon his return, he looked out the window at the Charles Bridge and the Vltava and assessed the situation. He was not sanguine, but it wasn't his job to be. He was a little woozy and more than a little sated, which was the way he wanted to be.
More than ever, he felt the plan had no chance. Throwing a bomb into a moving vehicle had been tried before, at Sarajevo, but Archduke Franz Ferdinand had saved his own life by knocking it away, into the path of another vehicle—only to be shot a few hours later by Gavrilo Princip on his way to the hospital to visit those wounded in the original bomb attack. Whoever had thought up the idea of a bomb attack, reflected Renault, was no student of history.
As in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the plotters had backup shooters ready to finish the job. Renault doubted that Rein-hard Heydrich would be as cooperative as Archduke Ferdinand, though.“Hello, my good fellow, yes, please do climb aboard and shoot me right in the heart of my imperial tunic, there's a good lad!”
He hated this assignment. He hated having to lie to Rick about why he wanted to be here. He hated the double life he was being forced to live. He was even starting to hate himself, distressing evidence of moral scruples he thought he had long since put behind him.
He found himself thinking about Isabel de Bononcière. He had known her for such a short while, yet she had haunted him for a lifetime. Since the night he had stood by and watched her die because he was too cowardly to defend her, he had relied on his slick charm, his carefully cultivated sense of fashionable ennui, his penchant for the apposite bon mot, the cut of his clothes, and the tilt of his cap. Most of all, he depended on the power vested in him by the state, which was not his power at all.
True, he was taking part in the operation at the behest of the Resistance. But Louis Renault looked upon these circumstances as similar to the unfortunate turn of events that had led Mlle, de Bononcière to his doorstep on Montmartre. Fate had dealt him the cards, as fixed as any card game he had ever played in, but fixed this time by a higher power. His choice of the name Boucher, therefore, was fitting: if he had to die, let the ghost of Isabel die with him.
The other woman who was very much in his thoughts at this moment was Annina Brandel, the dark-haired Bulgarian beauty who had been willing to sacrifice herself to him in order that she and Jan might escape. He knew why she had affected him so: there was a purity about her he had never seen before. Most of the women who entered his back room resented their participation in the sordid act necessary for them to get what they wanted. They were aware that he used their bodies, and they were ashamed of it. But Annina, he knew, would have given herself to him and emerged uncorrupted. To be able to sup with the devil and yet still go with God: how wonderful that must be! Would he ever get the chance?
Rick's rigged roulette wheel, which had provided Renault so many hours of pleasant, effortless profit, had robbed him of Annina Brandel. She had been the end for Louis Renault in Casablanca, the woman who finally made him look in the mirror and behold the soulless creature he had become. What had become of her? He hoped she had arrived safely in America, pregnant and happy. Somehow, though, he doubted it.
His reverie was interrupted by a soft knock on the door. It was Rick.
“My dear …,” he began to say, but Rick held a finger to his lips.
“Save it, Louie,” he said softly.
Renault closed the door.
“We haven't got much time,” said Rick.“We have to move fast, and we have to move smart.”
He went to the window to make sure no one was even remotely close to them. Although the afternoon was warm, he shut the window tight and stuffed towels under the room's front door. Renault cocked an eyebrow, bemused. All this reflection was getting him down. At least now he wouldn't be bored. When Rick was around, things were never boring.
“Here's the situation,” said Rick, practically chewing on an unlit cigarette. They were sitting in the center of the room. The radio was on, loud, just in case the room was bugged. They didn't have time to hunt for listening devices.
“Something's terribly wrong. Prague wants the operation called off, but it's too late. Laszlo is out at a safe house in Lidice with his assassination team. Ilsa's in trouble; I think they might be on to her.”
“What are we going to do?” Renault asked.
“We're going to do what you've wanted to do all along,” Rick said.“We're going to blow the operation ourselves.” He took a long drag on his cigarette.“Ilsa's going to tell Heydrich the whole story. Tomorrow night. To his face. She'll tell him he's going to be blasted sky high when he rides over the Charles Bridge on his way to work.”
Renault whistled softly.“Ricky, I’ve taken you for many things,” he said.“A crook. A liar. A thief. Even a murderer. But never, before this moment, a traitor. I congratulate you.” He was not entirely surprised. He had always wondered about the depth of Rick's Casablanca conversion. Wasn't this just a way to get rid of Laszlo and have Ilsa all to himself? He suspected it might be, as uncharitable as that interpretation was. Miss Lund lent herself very persuasively to all sorts of uncharitable interpretations.
“Get off it, Louie,” snapped Rick.“You know what I’m doing; hell, you raised the issue first yourself.” He struck a match furiously.“Something's been fishy about this whole show from the start. I’ve smelled lake trout that didn't stink this bad a week after Sam'd caught them and forgot to clean them because he was learning a new song.”
He inhaled so hard that Renault thought he must have seared his lungs.“You were right, Louie: Why did Laszlo escape from Mauthausen so easily? Why have the British outfitted him and his raggle-taggle team with the worst kind of assassination weapon, a bomb?”
“You tell me,” replied Renault.
“There's only one answer, and the Czechs have finally twigged to it. This operation isn't about Heydrich at all. It's about the war—the larger war. The Brits don't give a damn what happens to the Czech people. They got Laszlo out of Mauthausen because they needed him. Because they figure that by blowing Heydrich to hell and gone they can provoke the Germans into doing something really terrible and then the world will be on their side. God damn it, Louie, they're prepared to see hundreds, maybe thousands, of innocents die,just for the sake of having them die, so that the world will get a fresh taste of the Hun's inhumanity to keep its mind focused on the job at hand. The Czechs are on a sacrificial altar, my friend—and so are we!” He stopped talking, exhausted.
“What do we do now?” Renault asked.
“We go through with it,” replied Rick.“I’ve already signaled Laszlo that we strike the day after tomorrow. We come to the bridge armed for bear. We have our bomb and our guns ready, because we may have to defend ourselves when Heydrich's goon squad shows up, looking for trouble.”
“That's just the problem,” Renault objected.“They'll shoot us on sight.”
“No, they won't,” replied Rick.“First of all, they won't know who they're looking for. Second, we'll be expecting them, which means the minute we spot them we can abort and look like heroes. We fall back to the Church of St. Charles Borromeo, get word to Miles, request extraction, and live to fight another day. Once back in London, you can file your report to the Resistance—don't try to kid me, I can guess what you're up to—and tell them the British are the treacherous swine the French know they are. As for me, Sam and I’ll open a new nightclub. London could use some decent nightlife.”
Renault smiled. The jaunty little police captain of Casablanca had banished the gloomy visage of M. Boucher.“Ricky, you've outdone yourself,” he said delightedly. He laughed at himself for his earlier melancholy.“One of the things I’ve always admired about you is your foresight. You've thought of everything.”
“Except one,” said Rick.
“Ilsa Lund.”
“Right.”
Renault was not about to let his friend dwell on that: some things God would simply have to sort out.“One question: Do we inform Laszlo and the team that Heydrich is not going to keep his little date with us?”
“Obviously not,” said Rick.
“It's just the two of us, then? Our little secret, as it were?”
Rick nodded brusquely in reply.
“Very well,” said Renault smartly.“It won't be the first one. You understand, though, that it is entirely possible that neither of us will win this game? That we both can lose?”
“Why else would I be playing?” said Rick.“I’m sick of winning fixed crap games.”
“If Laszlo finds out you knew Heydrich was taking another route, then neither your life, nor, I regret to say, mine will be worth—”
“A plugged nickel,” finished Rick.
“Precisely,” Renault agreed.“Whatever that is.” He fidgeted in his seat.“Let me present you with a series of alternatives for your inspection. The first is that Heydrich heeds the warning, the plot goes for naught, we all escape successfully and live happily ever after in London. It's an attractive proposition, but unlikely.”
“Why?”
“Because the British will smell a rat the minute we return,” he said.“Perfidious Albion suspects all the world's countries of being as duplicitous as she is. We will be lucky if we're not shot within twenty-four hours of landing in London.”
“You may be right about that.”
“I am right,” said Renault.“Now, to point number two.” He fumbled with his cigarette case for a moment, then managed to open it.“Let us say that Heydrich, despite your warnings, does indeed appear for his rendezvous with death, accompanied by overwhelming force. What then?”
“We run like hell,” replied Rick.
“And we're shot, either by the Germans or by the Czechs or by the British. It doesn't matter: the result is the same,” said Renault.
“Why the British?” asked Rick.
“Can a story of a failed Allied attempt on the life of a top Nazi be allowed to get out? I think not.” He made the sound of a machine gun, barking in a courtyard.“Possibility number three is that Heydrich comes over the Charles Bridge and we are ready for him and against all odds Laszlo manages to throw his bomb into Heydrich's car and against even greater odds it goes off and against whatever odds you care to give it actually kills him. Then what?”
“I’ve been wondering about that myself ever since South Kensington,” answered Rick.“After what you've just told me, I can't see why the British would want us back.”
“Nor can I,” Renault agreed.“The rescue plane never arrives, we are all captured and shot, and the British are able to disavow any knowledge of our activities. You and Laszlo are forced to watch Ilsa's fate before being consigned to your own. Then the Germans really get mad, and raze whole villages, perhaps even small countries, thanks to our rash action. Is that what we really want?”
“It's not what I want,” said Rick,“but nobody asked me.”
Renault observed his friend with wry detachment. Here they were, playing the most dangerous game of their lives, and the two of them were sitting around discussing their prospects as if they were talking about an upcoming football match in which they both had a vague rooting interest.
Well, maybe it didn't really matter. How they were going to get out of Prague had always seemed to Renault a bit of a polite fiction. Whether they succeeded or failed, no one on either side of this conflict would want to welcome them home, or even admit knowing them. No matter what happened—whether Heydrich died or, far more likely, they were either killed on the spot or rounded up and shot later—it would all be over soon.
“Ricky,” he said at last,“what do you want to have happen? I mean, if you could make everything turn out exactly to your liking, what would it be?”
Rick lit a cigarette to help him think.“I don't know,” he said.“I guess I would say that Heydrich dies, nobody else gets hurt, and we all get away safe and live happily ever after.”
Renault smiled.“Except for Victor Laszlo, you mean.”
“Maybe.”
“No ‘maybe’ about it. Why, if I didn't know you better, I would say that you've set this whole game up to get Victor Laszlo killed, not Reinhard Heydrich.”
Rick rose and paced the floor.“But Heydrich deserves to die because he's a Nazi and a murderer and a thug and a gangster! Because if he doesn't, millions of people are going to suffer. And yet …”
Renault offered no reply to Rick's dilemma. Instead he said,“Victor Laszlo told Major Strasser something back in Casablanca—in your own cafÉ—that's been haunting me: that, if anything happened to him, hundreds of men like him would rise up from every corner of Europe to take his place. Isn't the same true of Heydrich? Maybe we can kill him. Others just like him, even worse, are only too willing—eager!—to take his place. I’d like to think the supply of good men in the world outweighs the number of bad, but right now that's a bet I’m not quite willing to lay.”
“So you're saying …?” asked Rick.
“So I’m saying that, whatever we decide and whatever we do, the larger issue is not going to be determined by our actions. We can't win this war all by ourselves, Ricky, and if we're smart, we won't even try.
All we can do is hope to get out alive.”
“Maybe you're right,” said Rick.“The Germans are sitting pretty in Europe, and there's no way the Allies can strike at them. The Russians are getting their teeth kicked in on the eastern front; they've already been pushed all the way back to Stalingrad, and it doesn't look like they'll be able to hold out much longer. When the Nazis are through with them, they can turn the full force of their armies on the West—on us. The British are trapped on their little island, the French have quit—no offense, Louie—and the Americans are busy with the Japs in the Pacific.” As he finished his cigarette he immediately lit another.
“Don't underestimate the Russians, my friend. They'll probably blunder into Berlin before this is through.”
“On the other hand, what can the Germans do?” Rick went on.“They can't even get across the English Channel, much less knock out the British. Hell, the English are still having dinner parties in London. And if the Nazis can't get across the Channel, they sure as hell aren't going to be able to get across the North Atlantic.” He breathed deeply.“So America, at least, is safe.”
“But not, I remind you, central Europe,” said Renault.“Where we find ourselves now.”
“We do indeed,” said Rick.
Renault's mind was racing. As far as the Resistance leaders back in London were concerned, the plan must fail. The British must not be allowed to pull off a coup like assassinating Heydrich. While his orders were to monitor the operation rather than explicitly to sabotage it, he was rapidly coming to the conclusion that Victor Laszlo's plan must go no further. That was fine with him; for the first time, he and Rick Blaine could be allies in good conscience.
The larger question, though, weighed on his mind. Which outcome was in the best interests of France—not occupied France, or Vichy France, but la belle France? His brave words of greeting to Major Strasser—”Unoccupied France welcomes you to Casablanca”—he knew to be so much bravado. He was nothing more than a collaborationist, a weak man, a camp follower. A whore.
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