Midnight in Europe (9 page)

They knew.

“Szarny has a foundry called Brno Ironworks that’s connected to the Skoda arms company. I don’t know how, I don’t know who owns what, but Szarny says he can deliver what we need.”

De Lyon looked over at Ferrar, meaning
can you find out?
Ferrar nodded, he could discover who owned what. De Lyon said, “How did you find him, Stavros?”

“I have a man in Brno, where they make the Skoda anti-tank
guns. He’s a confidential agent and collects information from chambermaids in hotels, barmen, maybe a cop or two, and when I asked him about Skoda he came up with Szarny.”

As an aside, de Lyon said to Ferrar, “You know that Czechoslovakia is the leading arms exporter in Europe. They make the Panzer tank the Germans love so much.”

“I do know,” Ferrar said. People who read newspapers knew about Czechoslovakia, so beloved by Hitler. Who had stated rather clearly, if you knew how to read him, that he meant to have it. Thus the propaganda about the poor, much-abused German minority in the Sudetenlands.

“So,” Stavros said, “Szarny has a bad case of nerves, he’s so cautious on the telephone that I sometimes can’t understand what the hell he’s talking about. He starts calling guns bicycles, ‘shipping the bicycles,’ good, I finally figure it out. Then the next time it’s lamps. I suppose he’s afraid somebody’s listening to his telephone, but, I mean, lamps? Skoda makes all kinds of things but lamps is one thing they don’t make. If somebody
is
listening to his phone, they’re laughing.

“You see, he needs the money but he’s scared, goes back and forth, not now, next week. No, not next week, he has to be in Berlin. So I went down there and met him in the bad part of Brno, in a bar by a factory. I was holding a French magazine, so he could identify me, but I don’t think he ever saw it, he took one look at me and his eyes got like this.” Stavros opened his eyes wide with horror and de Lyon and Ferrar laughed. Stavros had some actor in him. “Well, who the fuck did he expect, Shirley Temple?”

“What’s he worried about,” Ferrar said. “Something in particular? Or just scared of getting caught?”

“Everything. The sale has to be approved by various Czech ministries, though he thinks he can get that done. But, because of the Non-Intervention Treaty, there has to be a country other than Spain that’s supposedly buying the guns. But what he’s really worried about is the bribe.”

“How much does he want?”

“A hundred thousand dollars, in British gold sovereigns.”

“A lot,” de Lyon said, “but we always bribe when we have to.”

“He’s worried about where to keep it—he says he can’t keep it at home.”

“Has he heard that there are
banks
?” Ferrar said.

Stavros shrugged.

“
Swiss
banks?” de Lyon said.

Looking past Stavros’s shoulder, Ferrar saw that the girlfriends had tired of the ladies’ WC and were now seated at a table of eager young men. “I think you’d better see to your friends,” he said. Stavros turned halfway around, swore in Greek, and went off to retrieve his prizes.

“He’s Greek?” Ferrar said.

“Macedonian. He spent his teenage years fighting Bulgarian bandits. After that, being a gangster was easy.” De Lyon paused and said, “What do you think about this Szarny?”

“Blackmail,” Ferrar said. “He has to have the money in hand.”

“Yes, that’s the way I see it. For what doesn’t matter.”

Ferrar thought this over. “Maybe it doesn’t, but you’d be surprised at what sort of jack can jump out of the box when you open the lid. Suddenly, it
does
matter.”

Stavros was standing at the table where the strayed girlfriends had found refuge. But they wouldn’t be staying there. Ferrar
really
didn’t want to be involved in a nightclub brawl, but relaxed when he saw how Stavros was dealing with the problem. He had a big smile on his face, not quite a pleasant smile, but a big one. He had his arm around the shoulders of one of the eager young men, was now giving him an affectionate squeeze, and laughing. The young man’s face was flushed; he was obviously terrified. Stavros then shook the hand of one of the other young men, shook it enthusiastically, couldn’t bear to let go. Finally he did, then led his girlfriends back toward the table.

“Probably better,” de Lyon said, “to stay on Stavros’s good side.”

When Stavros returned to the table, he said to the blonde, “What a funny fellow, that … what was his name?”

The blonde was sulking, she’d been having a good time. “Something like, Clive.”

“Oh,
Clive
. He’s English?”

“Yes, he has some sort of title. He’s on holiday in Paris.”

“How nice for Clive.”

De Lyon saw that the private part of their conversation was over, and started talking about the weather. Stavros let him go on for a few minutes, then said, “We’re going to a party, let me know what you want to do—I think it’s better for you to take over now that I’ve found our man. If he
is
our man.”

When the trio was gone, de Lyon took a notepad and a stub of pencil from his pocket. He opened the notepad to a page with numbers and letters and used the pencil as a pointer so Ferrar could follow along as he read aloud. In the background, the band was now playing “September in the Rain.”

“Here’s what we have,” de Lyon said. “We’re trying to buy the Skoda A3 thirty-seven-millimeter anti-tank gun. We’ll try to get fifty of them, Skoda charges about four thousand dollars apiece. Then we want thirty-six thousand shells, which will be around three hundred thousand dollars. To this we add a hundred thousand for the bribe, and then there’s the shipping. What do you think?”

“Very expensive, I had no idea.”

“A seller’s market. Since 1933, and German rearmament, the competition has driven up the price. Do you know what an anti-tank gun looks like?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen one … maybe in a newsreel.”

“It’s a small cannon, the barrel is five feet long, half of it extended through an iron shield, and it moves on wheels with wooden spokes. It looks like something from the 1914 war, or earlier. But it works, fires twelve shells a minute and penetrates an inch and a half of plate armor at a thousand yards. Any questions?”

“No.”

“Now, the problem here is the bribe. If we can’t use a bank transfer, we’ll have to take the money down to Brno ourselves. Are you able to do that, Cristián?”

Ferrar thought about it, and at last answered. “I’m not sure I can, but I’ll try.”

At the Coudert office, the following morning, Ferrar met with George Barabee. They were still working on the Polanyi case, nominally a dispute over three vizsla dogs, but in fact a reach for power by a deceased shareholder’s son, who wanted a full share in the holding company that owned a private bank in Budapest. To do that, he would have to force his sister, who he hated, to give up her half share. Ferrar wondered aloud if they could negotiate with the male heir. “At the moment, we represent all the shareholders, but if the male heir insists on his right to freeze the operation of the company, we will represent the two uncles and the sister. And then, we’ll go to court.”

Barabee made notes as Ferrar spoke, nodding in agreement as he wrote. When Ferrar was done, Barabee said, “A good lawyer will usually counsel a client against litigation, so let’s sit down with the nephew and ask him if he will accept a settlement. And we can suggest, just to help him in the direction we want him to go, that being forced to defend himself in court could be a long and expensive ordeal. We can’t lean too hard, but there are family lawsuits in France that have gone on for years. Years and years. And then, we should point out to him that we’ll try to remove him from the holding company. ‘You’ve been a bad boy, junior, so no money for you. You’ll have to go to work.’ Now, Cristián, how do we go about suing him?”

“Under French law, he’s entitled to vote as a shareholder, he is
not
entitled to damage the corporation, the holding company. He is, in fact, obligated to act for the
benefit
of the corporation, he cannot simply abstain. And if he holds to his strategy of freezing
the corporation, he is then guilty of what in French law is called ‘waste of corporate assets.’ ”

“You say ‘under French law.’ It’s my understanding that the nephew lives in Budapest. How do we sue him in France?”

“I’ll have to talk to Count Polanyi about that because we’ll need his cooperation. Junior, as you call him, will have to be induced to come to France, where he’ll be served with process. I don’t think we want to be involved with confidential agents—private detectives, that can become a nightmare very quickly. It’s the family who will have to do the work, and Polanyi will know how. He’s a diplomat at the Hungarian legation here, but there are rumors about his being involved with espionage. So, he’s just right for something like this.”

“Good, Cristián. Go ahead and contact Polanyi, tell him what we propose, and, if he agrees, you get in touch with junior, by telephone, and have a talk.”

Barabee was done with the meeting, but Ferrar made no move to leave the office and Barabee said, “Is there something else?”

“There is,” Ferrar said, lighting a cigarette. He went on to explain about Castillo’s disappearance and probable death, Molina’s request, and his agreement to work with the Oficina Técnica as an unpaid, and unofficial, consultant. “What I had in mind,” Ferrar said, “was the occasional telephone call or meeting, all of it after work or on the weekend.”

“Generous of you, Cristián. They get good legal advice, which has to be helpful—arms purchasing must have substantial gray areas. Very gray, now that I think about it.”

“I will give them legal advice, if they ask for it, but that’s not what I’m there for.”

“You’re not?”

“I’m there to aid in buying armament.”

Barabee’s expression was a veiled, lawyerly version of
you’re doing what?

“I’ve just begun working with one of the people in the arms office,
the man who actually gets the job done. We talked for a long time last night and he wants my help with a particular purchase for the Republic, and that would mean I have to travel to Brno and spend a day or two there.”

Barabee was silent, absorbing what Ferrar had told him. As he did so, a certain look appeared on his face, not horror, but a quizzical expression that sometimes precedes it. At last he said, “Brno as in Skoda arms?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, you’re going to Brno to buy guns.”

“I intend to, if the office can spare me for a few days.”

“Official, legal gun buying?”

“Buying the guns will be legal, moving them to Spain is forbidden by the non-intervention pact, which Czechoslovakia has signed, so we have to persuade the Czech administration they’re going elsewhere.”

“I had no idea you knew anything about weapons.”

“I don’t.”

“Then why you?”

“They need to call on people, professional people like me, to help them in a time of crisis. The previous incumbent was a gynecologist.”

Barabee shook his head. “Cristián, lawyers are not supposed to engage in illegal activities. This could blow up in your face.”

“I know. For example, it’s illegal to use false documents, just as illegal as helping Jews in flight to cross borders with faked papers.”

From Barabee, a smile. “You’re a good lawyer, Cristián.” Then he picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser on the top of his desk. Finally he said, “Well, you’re lucky in one way. The lawyers in New York, and I mean the senior partners, are active in politics, they take that as a moral obligation. Fred Coudert, who runs the law firm, made great effort—speeches, private dinners, articles in journals, lawyers’ committees—to have the U.S. join the League of Nations and the world court in The Hague. As you know, it couldn’t
be done. Isolationism, especially in Congress, killed any chance of membership. And the firm hasn’t changed, most of the partners are active in support of FDR, who would sell guns to Spain if he could. Truth is, ideologues are not popular on Rector Street; Hitler, Stalin, now Franco. So what you want to do, basically on your own time, may not be at all disagreeable to the partners, as long as the firm doesn’t get a black eye.”

“Thank you, George.”

“Don’t thank me yet, later today I have to call Fred, and then we’ll see. But when I talk to him I want to tell him that I have your agreement, your commitment, in one area; under no circumstances can you involve this law firm, or Coudert clients, in what you’re doing. Do you agree?”

“I do. You have my word.”

Barabee grew reflective, looked out the window for a time, then said, “You know I flew fighter planes for the American Expeditionary Force in 1917. I was a lot younger, but I believe I felt a lot like you do now. If you believe in something, you have to fight for it.”

By four-thirty that afternoon, Ferrar had his answer. Fred Coudert had agreed to let him do what he’d described to Barabee. “He said you could take time off, and do what you have to do. We’ll consider it a form of public service, the 1938 version of public service. He is also concerned, not so much about what you want to do—he knows we have to fight fascism—but about your personal safety. He likes you, Cristián, he always has.”

Now Ferrar could say thank you.

That evening Ferrar was to go out to Louveciennes to have dinner with his family. He had bought them a house there—they all liked the little town on the Seine, which had lively restaurants with dance floors built above the bank of the river. It wasn’t far, twenty miles from the city, and Parisians went out there in summer to have a good time. Boating. Picnics. It was a pretty place, the Impressionists
had painted the very devil out of it, inspired by the long winding lanes between rows of poplars that led away from the town into the countryside. The house, built in 1830, was two stories high, with walls of gray stucco, tall shutters weathered gray at every window, and a roof of dark slate shingles. Ferrar liked the slate shingles, but the slate shingles didn’t like Ferrar. A cunning, spiteful house it was, constantly needing money for repairs. The shingles cracked, the cellar flooded, Ferrar paid.