World War 2 Thriller Collection Read online

  It was hard to guess Byrd’s age except that he was in the middle fifties. He had plenty of hair and it was showing no sign of grey. His skin was fair and so tight across his face that you could see the muscles that ran from cheekbone to jaw. His ears were tiny and set high, his eyes were bright, active and black, and he stared at you when he spoke to prove how earnest he was. Had I not known that he was a regular naval officer until taking up painting eight years ago I might have guessed him to be a mechanic who had bought his own garage. When he had carefully primed his pipe he lit it with slow care. It wasn’t until then that he spoke again.

  ‘Go to England at all?’

  ‘Not often,’ I said.

  ‘Nor me. I need more baccy; next time you go you might bear that in mind.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘This brand,’ he held a packet for me to see. ‘Don’t seem to have it here in France. Only stuff I like.’

  He had a stiff, quarter-deck manner that kept his elbows at his waist and his chin in his neck. He used words like ‘roadster’ that revealed how long it was since he had lived in England.

  ‘I’m going to ask you to leave early tonight,’ he said. ‘Heavy day tomorrow.’ He called to the model, ‘Early start tomorrow, Annie.’

  ‘Very well,’ she called back.

  ‘We’ll call dinner off if you like.’ I offered.

  ‘No need to do that. Looking forward to it to tell the truth.’ Byrd scratched the side of his nose.

  ‘Do you know Monsieur Datt?’ I asked. ‘He lunches at the Petit Légionnaire. Big-built man with white hair.’

  ‘No,’ he said. He sniffed. He knew every nuance of the sniff. This one was light in weight and almost inaudible. I dropped the subject of the man from the Avenue Foch.

  Byrd had asked another painter to join us for dinner. He arrived about nine thirty. Jean-Paul Pascal was a handsome muscular young man with a narrow pelvis who easily adapted himself to the cowboy look that the French admire. His tall rangy figure contrasted sharply with the stocky blunt rigidity of Byrd. His skin was tanned, his teeth perfect. He was expensively dressed in a light-blue suit and a tie with designs embroidered on it. He removed his dark glasses and put them in his pocket.

  ‘An English friend of Monsieur Byrd,’ Jean-Paul repeated as he took my hand and shook it. ‘Enchanted.’ His handshake was gentle and diffident as though he was ashamed to look so much like a film star.

  ‘Jean-Paul speaks no English,’ said Byrd.

  ‘It is too complicated,’ said Jean-Paul. ‘I speak a little but I do not understand what you say in reply.’

  ‘Precisely,’ said Byrd. ‘That’s the whole idea of English. Foreigners can communicate information to us but Englishmen can still talk together without an outsider being able to comprehend.’ His face was stern, then he smiled primly. ‘Jean-Paul’s a good fellow just the same: a painter.’ He turned to him. ‘Busy day, Jean?’

  ‘Busy, but I didn’t get much done.’

  ‘Must keep at at, my boy. You’ll never be a great painter unless you learn to apply yourself.’

  ‘Oh but one must find oneself. Proceed at one’s own speed,’ said Jean-Paul.

  ‘Your speed is too slow,’ Byrd pronounced, and handed Jean-Paul a glass of sherry without having asked him what he wanted. Jean turned to me, anxious to explain his apparent laziness. ‘It is difficult to begin a painting – it’s a statement – once the mark is made one has to relate all later brush-strokes to it.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Byrd. ‘Simplest thing in the world to begin, tricky though pleasurable to proceed with, but difficult – dammed difficult – to end.’

  ‘Like a love affair,’ I said. Jean laughed. Byrd flushed and scratched the side of his nose.

  ‘Ah. Work and women don’t mix. Womanizing and loose living is attractive at the time, but middle age finds women left sans beauty, and men sans skills; result misery. Ask your friend Monsieur Datt about that.’

  ‘Are you a friend of Datt?’ Jean-Paul asked.

  ‘I hardly know him,’ I said. ‘I was asking Byrd about him.’

  ‘Don’t ask too many questions,’ said Jean. ‘He is a man of great influence; Count of Périgord it is said, an ancient family, a powerful man. A dangerous man. He is a doctor and a psychiatrist. They say he uses LSD a great deal. His clinic is as expensive as any in Paris, but be gives the most scandalous parties there too.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said Byrd. ‘Explain.’

  ‘One hears stories,’ said Jean. He smiled in embarrassment and wanted to say no more, but Byrd made an impatient movement with his hand, so he continued. ‘Stories of gambling parties, of highly placed men who have got into financial trouble and found themselves …’ he paused ‘… in the bath.’

  ‘Does that mean dead?’

  ‘It means “in trouble”, idiom,’ explained Byrd to me in English.

  ‘One or two important men took their own lives,’ said Jean. ‘Some said they were in debt.’

  ‘Damned fools,’ said Byrd. ‘That’s the sort of fellows in charge of things today, no stamina, no fibre; and that fellow Datt is a party to it, eh? Just as I thought. Oh well, chaps won’t be told today. Experience better bought than taught they say. One more sherry and we’ll go to dinner. What say to La Coupole? It’s one of the few places still open where we don’t have to reserve.’

  Annie the model reappeared in a simple green shirtwaist dress. She kissed Jean-Paul in a familiar way and said good evening to each of us.

  ‘Early in the morning,’ Byrd said as he paid her. She nodded and smiled.

  ‘An attractive girl,’ Jean-Paul said after she had gone.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Poor child,’ said Byrd. ‘It’s a hard town for a young girl without money.’

  I’d noticed her expensive crocodile handbag and Charles Jourdan shoes, but I didn’t comment.

  ‘Want to go to an art show opening Friday? Free champagne.’ Jean-Paul produced half a dozen gold-printed invitations, gave one to me and put one on Byrd’s easel.

  ‘Yes, we’ll go to that,’ said Byrd; he was pleased to be organizing us. ‘Are you in your fine motor, Jean?’ Byrd asked.

  Jean nodded.

  Jean’s car was a white Mercedes convertible. We drove down the Champs with the roof down. We wined and dined well and Jean-Paul plagued us with questions like do the Americans drink Coca-Cola because it’s good for their livers.

  It was nearly one A.M. when Jean dropped Byrd at the studio. He insisted upon driving me back to my room over Le Petit Légionnaire. ‘I am especially glad you came tonight,’ he said. ‘Byrd thinks that he is the only serious painter in Paris, but there are many of us who work equally hard in our own way.’

  ‘Being in the navy,’ I said, ‘is probably not the best of training for a painter.’

  ‘There is no training for a painter. No more than there is training for life. A man makes as profound a statement as he is able. Byrd is a sincere man with a thirst for knowledge of painting and an aptitude for its skills. Already his work is attracting serious interest here in Paris and a reputation in Paris will carry you anywhere in the world.’

  I sat there for a moment nodding, then I opened the door of the Mercedes and got out. ‘Thanks for the ride.’

  Jean-Paul leaned across the seat, offered me his card and shook my hand. ‘Phone me,’ he said, and – without letting go of my hand – added, ‘If you want to go to the house in the Avenue Foch I can arrange that too. I’m not sure I can recommend it, but if you have money to lose I’ll introduce you. I am a close friend of the Count; last week I took the Prince of Besacoron there – he is another very good friend of mine.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, taking the card. He stabbed the accelerator and the motor growled. He winked and said, ‘But no recriminations afterward.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed. The Mercedes slid forward.

  I watched the white car turn on to the Avenue with enough momentum to make the tyres howl. The Petit
Légionnaire was closed. I let myself in by the side entrance. Datt and my landlord were still sitting at the same table as they had been that afternoon. They were still playing Monopoly. Datt was reading from his Community Chest card, ‘Allez en prison. Avancez tout droit en prison. Ne passez pas par la case “Départ”. Ne recevez pas Frs 20.000.’ My landlord laughed, so did M. Datt.

  ‘What will your patients say?’ said my landlord.

  ‘They are very understanding,’ said Datt; he seemed to take the whole game seriously. Perhaps he got more out of it that way.

  I tiptoed upstairs. I could see right across Paris. Through the dark city the red neon arteries of the tourist industry flowed from Pigalle through Montmartre to Boul. Mich., Paris’s great self-inflicted wound.

  Joe chirped. I read Jean’s card. ‘“Jean-Paul Pascal, artist painter”. And good friend to princes,’ I said. Joe nodded.

  4

  Two nights later I was invited to join the Monopoly game. I bought hotels in rue Lecourbe and paid rent at the Gare du Nord. Old Datt pedantically handled the toy money and told us why we went broke.

  When only Datt remained solvent he pushed back his chair and nodded sagely as he replaced the pieces of wood and paper in the box. If you were buying old men, then Datt would have come in a box marked White, Large and Bald. Behind his tinted spectacles his eyes were moist and his lips soft and dark like a girl’s, or perhaps they only seemed dark against the clear white skin of his face. His head was a shiny dome and his white hair soft and wispy like mist around a mountain top. He didn’t smile much, but he was a genial man, although a little fussy in his mannerisms as people of either sex become when they live alone.

  Madame Tastevin had, upon her insolvency, departed to the kitchen to prepare supper.

  I offered my cigarettes to Datt and to my landlord. Tastevin took one, but Datt declined with a theatrical gesture. ‘There seems no sense in it,’ he proclaimed, and again did that movement of the hand that looked like he was blessing a multitude at Benares. His voice was an upper-class voice, not because of his vocabulary or because he got his conjugations right but because he sang his words in the style of the Comédie Française, stressing a word musically and then dropping the rest of the sentence like a half-smoked Gauloise. ‘No sense in it,’ he repeated.

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Tastevin, puffing away. ‘Not sense.’ His voice was like a rusty lawn-mower.

  ‘The pursuit of pleasure,’ said Datt, ‘is a pitfall-studded route.’ He removed the rimless spectacles and looked up at me blinking.

  ‘You speak from experience?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve done everything,’ said Datt. ‘Some things twice. I’ve lived in eight different countries in four continents. I’ve been a beggar and I’ve been a thief. I’ve been happy and sad, rich and poor, master and manservant.’

  ‘And the secret of happiness,’ mocked Tastevin, ‘is to refrain from smoking?’

  ‘The secret of happiness,’ Datt corrected, ‘is to refrain from wishing to.’

  ‘If that’s the way you feel,’ said Tastevin, ‘why do you come to my restaurant almost every day?’

  At that moment Madame Tastevin came in with a tray holding a coffee jug and plates of cold chicken and terrine of hare.

  ‘There’s your reason for not smoking,’ said Datt. ‘I would never let tobacco mar the taste of the food here.’ Madame Tastevin purred with delight. ‘I sometimes think my life is too perfect. I enjoy my work and never wish to do less of it, and I eat your wonderful food. What a perfect life.’

  ‘That’s self-indulgent,’ said Tastevin.

  ‘Perhaps it is – so what? Isn’t your life self-indulgent? You could make far more money working in one of the three-star restaurants but you spend your life running this small one – one might almost say for your friends.’

  ‘I suppose that’s true,’ said Tastevin. ‘I enjoy cooking, and my customers appreciate my work I think.’

  ‘Quite so. You are a sensible man. It’s madness to go every day to work at something you do not enjoy.’

  ‘But suppose,’ asked Madame Tastevin, ‘that such a job brought us a lot of money that would enable him to retire and then do as he wishes?’

  ‘Madame,’ said Datt. His voice took on that portentous, melodious quality that narrators on arty French films employ. ‘Madame Tastevin,’ he said again, ‘there is a cave in Kashmir – Amarnath cave – the most sacred spot on earth to a worshipper of the Hindu god Siva. The pilgrims who journey there are old; sometimes sick too. Many of them die on the high passes, their tiny tents swept away by the sudden rainstorms. Their relatives do not weep. To them this does not matter; even the arrival – which must always be on a night of full moon – is not more vital than the journey. Many know they will never arrive. It is the journey that is holy, and so it is to Existentialists: life is more important than death. Whatever they do, men are too anxious to get to the end. The sex act, eating a fine meal, playing golf, there is a temptation to rush, gobble or run. That is foolish, for one should move at a relaxed pace through life doing the work one enjoys instead of chasing ambition helter-skelter, pursuing one’s ultimate death.’

  Tastevin nodded sagely and I stopped gobbling the cold chicken. Datt tucked a napkin in his collar and savoured a little terrine, pursing his lips and remarking on the salt content. When he had finished he turned to me. ‘You have a telephone, I believe,’ he said, and without waiting for my reply was already on his feet and moving towards the door.

  ‘By all means use it,’ I told him and by a burst of speed was able to get upstairs before him. Joe blinked in the sudden electric light. Datt dialled a number and said ‘Hello, I am at the Petit Légionnaire and I am ready for the car in about five minutes.’ He hung up. Datt came over to where I was standing with Joe. ‘It’s my belief,’ said Datt, ‘that you are making inquiries about me.’

  I didn’t answer.

  ‘It would be a fruitless task.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because no matter what you discover it will not harm me.’

  ‘The art of Zen in clandestine behaviour?’

  Datt smiled. ‘The art of Zen in having influential friends,’ he said.

  I didn’t answer him. I pushed open the shutters and there was Paris. Warm streets, a policeman, two lovers, four cats, fifty dented deux-chevaux cars and a pavement full of garbage bins. The life of Paris centres on its streets; its inhabitants sit at the windows gazing down upon people as they buy, sell, thieve, drive, fight, eat, chat, posture, cheat or merely stand looking, upon the streets of Paris. Its violence too centres upon the streets and outside the public baths the previous night M. Picard, who owned the laundry, was robbed and knifed. He died twitching his own blood into ugly splashes that could still be seen upon the torn election posters flapping from the ancient shutters.

  A black Daimler came down the road and stopped with a tiny squeak.

  ‘Thank you for the use of your telephone,’ said Datt. At the door he turned. ‘Next week I should like to talk with you again,’ he said. ‘You must tell me what you are curious about.’

  ‘Any time,’ I agreed. ‘Tomorrow if you wish.’

  Datt shook his head. ‘Next week will be soon enough.’

  ‘As you wish.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Datt. He walked out without saying good night.

  After Datt left Joe took a brief swing. I checked that the documents were still in their hiding-place. Perhaps I should have given them to Datt a few minutes before, but I looked forward to seeing him again next week. ‘It seems to me, Joe,’ I said, ‘that we are the only people in town who don’t have powerful friends.’ I put the cover on him before he could answer.

  5

  Faubourg St Honoré, seven thirty P.M. Friday. The tiny art gallery was bursting at the seams. Champagne, free champagne, was spilling over high suede boots and broken sandals. I had spent twenty-five minutes prising triangular pieces of smoked salmon away from circular pieces of toast, which is not a rewarding exp
erience for a fully grown human male. Byrd was talking to Jean-Paul and rapping at one of the abstract panels. I edged towards them, but a young woman with green eye-shadow grabbed my arm. ‘Where’s the artist?’ she asked. ‘Someone’s interested in “Creature who fears the machine” and I don’t know if it’s one hundred thousand francs or fifty.’ I turned to her but she had grabbed someone else already. Most of my champagne was lost by the time I got to Byrd and Jean-Paul.

  ‘There’s some terrible people here,’ said Jean-Paul.

  ‘As long as they don’t start playing that dashed rock-and-roll music again,’ said Byrd.

  ‘Were they doing that?’ I asked.

  Byrd nodded. ‘Can’t stand it. Sorry and all that, but can’t stand it.’

  The woman with green eye-shadow waved across a sea of shoulders, then cupped her mouth and yelled to me. ‘They have broken one of the gold chairs,’ she said. ‘Does it matter?’

  I couldn’t stand her being so worried. ‘Don’t worry,’ I called. She nodded and smiled in relief.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Jean-Paul. ‘Do you own this gallery?’

  ‘Give me time,’ I said, ‘and maybe I’ll give you a one-man show.’

  Jean-Paul smiled to show that he knew it was a joke, but Byrd looked up suddenly. ‘Look here, Jean-Paul,’ he said severely, ‘a one-man show would be fatal for you right now. You are in no way prepared. You need time, my boy, time. Walk before you run.’ Byrd turned to me. ‘Walk before you run, that’s right, isn’t it?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Any mother will tell you that most kids can run before they can walk; it’s walking that’s difficult.’

  Jean-Paul winked at me and said, ‘I must decline, but thank you anyway.’

  Byrd said, ‘He’s not ready. You gallery chappies will just have to wait. Don’t rush these young artists. It’s not fair. Not fair to them.’

  I was just going to straighten things out when a short thickset Frenchman with a Légion d’Honneur in his buttonhole came up and began to talk to Byrd.