by James R Benn
It was a dying face. Madame Fassier didn’t have long for this world, and I wondered why her husband had not uttered a single word about her. He certainly wasn’t short on words when it came to his disinherited son. The lady had some steel in her, that was clear. She hadn’t batted an eyelash when two strangers with submachine guns were brought into her sitting room. Only the mention of her son had produced a reaction.
She and Kaz kept on talking as I looked around the room. It was furnished nicely, with oil paintings on the walls and expensive-looking vases on display. Was Fassier well-off before the war, or had he found a way to enrich himself as part of his willing collaboration?
There was a portrait of Marshal Pétain in a gilt-edged frame, set on a lacquered side table in a place of pride, near a collection of family portraits. Lucien was not among them. Not many homes in recently liberated towns had the old marshal on display. Was Madame Fassier pro-fascist as her husband was, or did she simply not have the energy or desire to remove this reminder of the old order? Perhaps she thought her husband might still return home.
In this room, the curtains were open to allow the afternoon sun to filter in. At the rear of the house a vegetable garden filled the space between a small barn and a line of fir trees. Withered vines of beans stood on poles over turnip plants in the well-weeded soil. This was why the rose garden was untended. Who cared about roses when you need turnips and rutabagas to stave off starvation?
Madame Fassier wept. Kaz took her gnarled, bony hand and cupped it between his. Whispers passed between them, then Kaz rose, bowed, and I followed him out of the room.
“I’m going to look around outside,” I said, as soon as we were in the hall. “Find the girl and see what she knows.” I left Kaz heading for the kitchen and I went out the front door. As I shut it, I noticed two tiny holes in the doorjamb, right at eye level. Little nail holes almost covered by a glossy black paint job. Exactly where a mezuzah would have been placed. I remembered my pal Henry Resnikoff proudly showing me his when they bought a house on Blue Hill Avenue in Dorchester. It was a small case holding biblical passages, a daily reminder of faith and the presence of God.
This had been a Jewish home.
The house and furnishings had been confiscated after the chief of police deported the family who’d lived here. Then he took down the symbol of their religion and painted it over, leaving only tiny holes as evidence of who had lived here. I could see why he was in jail, and why his previous accomplices wanted to make a show of bringing him to justice. It would remove a living witness and take the heat off them, for their perhaps lesser or less obvious crimes.
I touched the empty space.
I turned away and circled around the house, trying to put away the helpless rage I felt at all the suffering this war had brought about, and how men like Yves Fassier took advantage of it for nothing more than thick rugs and nice paintings. I followed a side street and spotted the stand of fir trees that abutted the Fassier property. I kept walking, then turned quickly, looking for a shadowy movement behind me. Nothing. Either I’d been imagining things, or the watchers from Louvet or Jarnac were staying close to the house.
I walked across a narrow, arched granite bridge. The stream and the trees were to the rear of the houses I’d walked past, including the Fassier place. The road curved, following the stream past a few more houses and stores, leading me to an old garage and a busy bicycle repair shop. With hardly any fuel available during the Occupation, bicycles had become highly valuable. The Germans requisitioned most motor vehicles, so there was little work left for automobile mechanics. The garage was deserted, the sour hard-packed dirt on the path smelling of oil and rust.
Traces of bicycle tire tracks were etched in the soil of the path leading to the stream. A rough wooden bridge spanned it, and the path continued to the town center. A convenient shortcut. Through the pine branches I could make out the rear of the Fassier house just as a woman on a bicycle rattled over the bridge, giving me a nervous glance as she pedaled faster to pass me by.
I didn’t blame her for being nervous. An armed man on a wooded path could be dangerous. No one would see anything unless they walked right by.
Wait. No one would see.
I turned and jogged back to the garage, where the people in the bicycle shop avoided looking at me. After years of occupation, I guess they were in the habit of not questioning armed men. I rattled a door on the side of the garage. Locked. I went around the front and tried the small door set inside the large garage doors and found that locked as well. The glass was grimy, the interior swathed in darkness. A sturdy padlock secured the garage door. I unslung my Thompson and made ready to break a window in the small door.
“Attendez!” shouted a guy in blue overalls, waving a ring of keys as he ran from the bike shop. Apparently, the loss of a window helped overcome his reluctance to get involved. As he fumbled through the keys we talked, and I figured out he rented the bike shop from the guy who owned the garage, and no one had used it in beaucoup months.
I stooped to enter through the door and blinked to get my eyes used to the dark. It didn’t take long to spot the tarpaulin-covered automobile at the far end. I yanked off the cover and wasn’t a bit surprised to find the green Amilcar with the 7857 MZ license plate and the FFI markings.
The bicycle guy shrugged. News to him, of course.
I figured Lucien was long gone. He’d ditched the car to hide his tracks, but he had to have some other transport. I doubted even a fascist turncoat would stay in his dying mother’s house with half the Resistance on his trail. Maybe there had been another car hidden in the garage, but I had a hunch there’d been something closer to home. I hotfooted it back across the stream and found a footpath leading through the trees to the Fassier garden. And to their barn.
The side door was unlocked. Garden tools and a wheelbarrow were arranged neatly next to a chair with one broken leg. A workbench sat along one wall, tools scattered along it. An oil can was shoved beneath it, fresh oil gleaming where it had run down the side. A rag smelled of gasoline, a rare and valuable commodity.
I spotted the gas can, covered by a pile of burlap. It still held a gallon or so.
It had to be a motorcycle. Otherwise, Lucien would have taken the gas can, or used it to fill the tank. There, leading to the double doors, a line of tire treads marked the path where he’d pushed it out. Too wide for a bicycle. Now our quarry was on a motorbike.
I found Kaz out front and filled him in on what I’d discovered.
“The serving girl admitted Lucien had been here today and departed on a motorbike. Which gives him many more options,” Kaz said. “He can travel cross-country and avoid checkpoints.”
“Right. It might have been his plan all along, in case he made a big score.”
“He had found refuge with his mother before,” Kaz said. “She said her husband had gone too far in disowning Lucien, and that he’d made several visits to see her when Yves was gone.”
“That checks out with the story Jules told,” I said.
“Yes, she confirmed she gave him food and hid him for a night or two. He was haunted by the war. Not this one, as it turned out, but the war in Spain. He had nightmares, she confessed.”
“Spain,” I said. “That keeps coming up. Louvet, Jarnac, and Fassier.”
“It makes sense,” Kaz said. “There are many in the Resistance who supported the anti-fascists. And some, like Louvet, who were involved in stopping them.”
“Did she ask why we were looking for Lucien?”
“Yes. Of course, at first, she feared the worst. But I assured her we simply needed his help, and with his habit of underground activities, we were having difficulty locating him,” he said. “She made me promise to find him and bring him home before it is too late.”
“Before his father is executed?”
“No. Madame Fassier was quite clear on that. Her hu
sband’s crimes against his countrymen were more than she could bear, but his betrayal of their own son was even worse. She had no desire for Lucien to experience his father’s last moments, because she is certain they would only be filled with hatred for him. No, it is her death she spoke of. She feels it is very close.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I’m glad she hasn’t heard what he got up to this morning. Did you get anything else useful from the girl?”
“Just that she knew of Lucien’s visits. She was always given the day off, so she would not be culpable if the father discovered anything. She readily told me about today’s visit, which lasted only minutes. He must have gotten here ahead of all of us, since the people watching the house are still here.”
“That house had been a Jewish home,” I said, filling in Kaz on what I’d noticed.
“Yes, the girl told me,” he said. “Madame Fassier does not like it mentioned, as if silence will cover the guilt. Lucien was enraged when he found out.”
“Anything else?”
“Well, there is good news and bad news. Lucien told her where he was going. To his friend from university, Charles Marchand,” Kaz said.
“I take it that’s the good news?”
“Correct. The bad news is that his friend lives in Rambouillet. Which is on the outskirts of Paris, on the other side of Chartres.”
“Behind the German lines,” I said.
“Most certainly,” Kaz said. “Although the situation is very fluid. We should contact Big Mike and get an intelligence update.”
Intelligence. I could use some. Nothing was adding up, and I began to think we were the ones being deceived in this deception campaign.
Chapter Twelve
Back at the jeep, Kaz got on the radio to contact Big Mike. A sudden shout arose from inside the café, followed by loud cheers as people spilled out onto the sidewalk. Across the street, police donning their kepi caps flooded out of the station, all of them excited, smiling and slapping one another’s shoulders, making a beeline for the café.
“Quelle est la célébration?” I asked a guy near me, hoping I got the words right.
“Les flics de Paris sont en grève,” he said. Paris cops are what?
“On strike,” Kaz said, shouting from the radio. “The Paris police have gone on strike.”
The street outside the café became a madhouse of cheers, toasts, shouts, and praise for General de Gaulle and the flics of Paris, and by extension, the hometown cops as well.
“We have new orders,” Kaz said, elbowing his way through the boisterous crowd. “Charles Marchand and Rambouillet will have to wait.”
“Hang on,” I said. “I can’t make heads or tails out of what’s going on here.” I waved to Inspector Ribot, who worked his way over. A bottle of wine was thrust into my hand, and soon there were cheers for the Allies as well as de Gaulle. Kaz had to shout to ask Ribot what exactly had happened.
“The police of Paris, they are en grève. No work, you understand? They take the Prefecture de Police. It is like a fortress,” he said, pride spreading across his face.
“You are sympathetic?” Kaz asked.
“Oui!” Ribot said. “We are not all Yves Fassier. Now the police will have their honneur again.”
“Does Fassier feel the same way?” I asked.
“It does not matter. He is dead,” Ribot said. “By the neck?”
“Hanged?” I said.
“Yes, yes. Hang-ed, as you say. Of his own making, with the sheet from the bed. Now, I must go. Au revoir.”
“One more thing, Inspector,” I said. “There are men watching Madame Fassier’s house. Are they your men?”
“No. I will send officers to check. Merci.”
“Suicide, really?” Kaz said as Ribot left.
“Maybe with un peu help,” I said. “I don’t think he’ll be missed, but it would have been nice if he could have named his fellow collaborators.”
“Much will be conveniently forgotten,” Kaz said, “now that the French police have their honor back. And the Jews they rounded up have all been sent to death camps.”
“What gives with the new orders?” I said, as soon as we were back in the jeep and clear of the crowd.
“We must pick up a French gentleman in Saint Christophe, about ten miles east of here, and return him to General Patton’s headquarters.”
“What? Are we a taxi service now? What about the phony pursuit of Lucien?”
“Big Mike says this is a high-priority task, according to Colonel Harding. We are closer to Saint-Christophe, so we must pick him up and Big Mike will meet us on the road back.”
“This guy rates an escort? Who is he?”
“Big Mike said there could be no names over the radio. We are to meet an intelligence officer from the 4th Division in the town square. He’s bringing this fellow in from the front,” Kaz said. “Orders, what can we do?”
“Okay,” I said, driving out of town. “At least this will be straightforward. Then we can get back to not catching Lucien Fassier. Did you tell him about the motorcycle?”
“Yes, and I told him Rambouillet was his likely destination. He’s alerting the MPs to watch for the motorcycle instead of the automobile, although he’d be a fool to go through a checkpoint when he could circle around cross-country.”
“I wonder if he knows his father is dead,” I said. “Or if he cares.”
“You are still thinking about Yves?”
“I can’t stop wondering why a son who evidently came around to his father’s way of thinking didn’t stop to see him,” I said. “Especially knowing his execution was likely. His mother would have told him that.”
“Perhaps Inspector Ribot lied,” Kaz said, with little enthusiasm. Someone was lying, and someone was a traitor. I was beginning to think Fassier didn’t fit the bill. But then why did he run? I let that one rumble around in my head while the road unwound before us.
Saint-Christophe was a small town gathered around a languid river and a small church opposite an ancient stone bridge. We spotted a truck and a jeep parked by the fountain in the center of town, GIs sitting on the stonework having a smoke. They told us our man was inside the truck.
“Major Hughes, Division G-2,” a lanky officer said, jumping down from the back of the truck. “You Captain Boyle and Lieutenant Kazimierz?”
We agreed we were and Hughes signaled to a shadowy form inside the covered truck.
“Jean Gallois,” the Frenchman said, jumping from the vehicle and shaking our hands with great fervor. He was sandy-haired and unshaven, dressed in a wrinkled, mud-stained suit he must have been wearing for days. There were bags under his eyes, but the pupils sparkled with energy and excitement. “I am chief of staff for the FFI in the greater Paris area. You will take me to General Eisenhower now?”
“We’ll get you close,” I said, casting a look toward Major Hughes.
“He checks out,” Hughes said. “He’s the real deal, just a couple of days out of Paris. Now get a move on, he’s all yours.”
“Any Kraut sightings around here?” I asked the major as we got back into the jeep.
“A few miles east, yeah. But Gallois made it through the lines, so they’re spread thin. There’re reports of German patrols and lots of lost units cut off and trying to find their way to the Seine. But organized opposition, no.”
“We ran into an engineer company loaded down with explosives,” I said. “Their orders were to report to the Paris commander.”
“Then we must leave immediately,” Gallois said, jamming himself into the rear of the jeep, beside the radio. “S’il vous plaît.”
“Hang on,” I said, wheeling the jeep around and flooring it on the road out of town. It was dusk, but the long summer evening still left plenty of light to drive by. There might not be many Fritzes left wandering around, but I didn’t see any reason to switch
on headlights and tip off the ones that were.
“You’ve come from Paris,” Kaz said, turning to speak to Gallois. “We just heard the police have gone on strike.”
“Yes, and the Metro workers as well. Police forces are barricaded in the Prefecture, and the French flag is being hoisted throughout the city,” he said. “But the situation is very dangerous. We need help.”
“Who’s in charge?” I asked, not wanting to get into what I knew of Uncle Ike’s plans to skirt Paris, not liberate it.
“Colonel Rol,” he said. “He is head of the FFI and controls all the armed forces in Paris. Not that we have that many arms. We need weapons, but most of all, we need Leclerc and his division to march on the city as soon as possible.”
“Which is why you want to see General Eisenhower,” I said.
“Of course. Already, many Germans are withdrawing from Paris. Most of the Gestapo left yesterday. Administrative units are leaving by the truckload. But there are still six thousand combat troops available to the commandant. And the engineering unit you mentioned worries me. He may be planning to blow up all the bridges over the Seine. It will be a disaster.”
“Won’t a battle in Paris be a disaster as well?” Kaz asked.
“Only if we waste time. A quick thrust would scatter the Germans before they dig in and destroy the bridges. And we have hundreds of fighters to strike at them as well. But you must hurry.”
“I will,” I said, pressing the accelerator to the floor. As for General Patton and Uncle Ike, they’d have to speak for themselves.
A few miles out, we saw Big Mike’s jeep headed our way. He pulled over, turned around and waved as we passed. Jules craned his neck to check out our passenger.
“Ah, a young FTP fighter,” Gallois said, spotting the FTP armband Jules wore. “Colonel Rol would be happy.”
“He’s FTP?” I asked.
“Yes. As are many of our fighters, even among the police,” Gallois said.
“I assume that’s his Resistance identity?” Kaz asked. “As is yours?”