The Other Side of Silence (9 page)

A
s I drove up the gravel drive, the tall green front door was opened by Ernest, the butler, and a moment later there was Maugham wearing an open-necked blue shirt, white linen trousers, and espadrilles. He was carrying a Pan American flight bag over one shoulder. I didn't get out of the car. I switched off the engine, wound down the window, and then Maugham leaned in. It was a beautiful deep summer evening—the kind of evening for talk of love, not blackmail money and an incriminating photograph.

Behind a hedge of thick pink and white oleanders I could hear the water trickling into the swimming pool, and the air was
thick with the smell of orange blossom, which was preferable to the absinthe martini and the cigarette corrupting the old man's mephitic breath, which now poured over me like chlorine gas drifting across no-man's-land.

“Do you want a d-drink before you go?” he asked.

“No thanks. I'd best keep a clear head for the rubber I'm about to play with Herr Hebel. But I'll certainly have one on my return. In fact, tell Ernest I might have several.”

“Of course. We'll even save some dinner for you.”

He dropped the bag onto the passenger seat and, taking out a folded handkerchief, wiped his forehead, which was glistening with sweat. Robin appeared in the doorway, and then so did Alan Searle. Maugham sensed their lingering presence and glanced over his shoulder with a hint of displeasure, as if he were being minded like someone who was senile; he was anything but that.

“Where are you meeting him?”

“He's rented a room at the Voile. That was his suggestion, not mine. But it's neutral territory, you might say. Harder for me to lay any kind of trap for him there.”

“Robin and Alan are both of the opinion that one of them should accompany you. And, more importantly, the money.”

“Those aren't Hebel's instructions.”

“I know.”

“But sure, why not? As long as Robin or Alan stays in the car, I guess it would be all right.”

“Aren't you a bit nervous?”

“No.” But this was a lie. For some reason, I had a strange
feeling of foreboding, as if something dreadful was going to happen. I'd even started to question the whole damn arrangement. Was it possible that this was all some kind of elaborate setup designed to put me in the frame for Hebel's murder, which the wily old Englishman had somehow arranged separately? He was a supremely gifted author, after all, and it would not have been beyond his fertile imagination to have devised some labyrinthine plot. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time that I'd been played for a fool. After all, I had only Maugham's word that it was actually Harold Heinz Hebel who'd asked me to take charge of the handover. I even wondered if Spinola's gun was still sitting on top of my bathroom cistern where I'd left it and if Spinola's death was somehow connected to all this. A double cross in a woman is something you can never really hold against her; you have to factor it in, like the weather; it's just the way they're made. To my old-fashioned way of thinking, W. Somerset Maugham was like a wily old woman in so many respects.

“No? You surprise me. You're a man of very cool temperament, I must say, and I'm beginning to understand why Hebel thought you might be the right chap for the job.”

“I'll be all right,” I said. “I have a friend coming with me to make sure everything goes smoothly.” And then, just to scare him a little, I flipped open the glove box and let him see the Sig that was in there.

“Christ, is that thing loaded?”

“Of course it's loaded. Without bullets guns are only good as paperweights.”

“What I mean is, you wouldn't use that unless you had to, would you?” he said. “Unless your own life was in danger.”

I grinned and lit a cigarette. “The other night you were in favor of me killing him, Mr. Maugham.”

“I was. Still am. But not in cold blood. I suggested a car accident. I certainly didn't want you to kill him immediately after coming here to the villa. How would that look to the police? Besides, you said yourself he may have taken the precaution of lodging some kind of letter with a local lawyer that incriminates me, and perhaps even you.”

“The gun's just an edge that he's not expecting,” I said. “You see, it's his gun. I searched his room at the Grand Hôtel just before I came here and found it in his drawer. Which answers your question about how trustworthy he is. The man is a criminal.” I glanced at my wristwatch and then back at Robin and Alan in the doorway. “You'd best make up your mind, sir. Do you want one of them to come or not?”

“Would it make a difference?”

“Not if I really was planning to take off with the money, no. Best they both stay here out of harm's way. Believe me, I know a lot about harm's way. It turns sharp left off the road to Shitsville when you're least expecting it.”

I drove back down the hill to the port, which was still busy with small boats coming and going under the early-evening moon like bees collecting pollen. I parked the car near the harbor and walked up the slope of the esplanade toward the hotel entrance with the airline bag slung over my shoulder and the
gun tucked underneath the waistband of my trousers. If anything was going to go wrong, I thought it best my car was elsewhere when it happened. The bell tower at the little church was marking eight o'clock as if time on the Cap was important. For anyone but me it probably wasn't. Red and pink people who looked as if they'd had too much sun were coming ashore and heading to the many restaurants in search of a good dinner, but it didn't matter at what hour they ate and really there was only one good restaurant and that was at La Voile d'Or. Although it was, perhaps, a little too formal for most tourists, which is probably why I liked it in the first place.

My first thought as I went through the front door of the hotel was not about Hebel or the money in the bag I was carrying, but of poor Spinola and how he and I were never going to sit down in the bar again and talk about nothing much before a friendly game of cards. I always felt alone, but suddenly the realization that I'd lost my one remaining friend hit me as hard as if I'd lost an arm or a leg. I liked Anne French, but I wasn't in any doubt that she was hardly a friend; she was just using me to get close to Somerset Maugham. I didn't mind that. People do what they have to do and what they think they have to do, and mostly there's no way around that. It certainly makes life interesting, if perhaps a little less enjoyable. I sighed as I realized I was probably going to have to tell the Roses that Spinola was dead and that our bridge evenings were at an end; and then I considered that I could ask Anne French to be my partner instead. She'd like that. Not as much as if I'd asked her to come and make up
a four with Somerset Maugham, but then, she had to start somewhere.

I went to the front desk, where a man with a pimp mustache and a blue bow tie was reading the latest on the Tour de France in
L'Équipe
, although his girth told me it had been a long time since he'd ridden a racing bicycle. We knew each other. His name was Henri and, according to Spinola, he'd been in the Resistance, which was an organization that seemed to be growing all the time. Certainly it was twice the size it had ever been throughout the war.

“That's the newspaper that believed Captain Dreyfus was guilty of selling us secrets, isn't it?” I said.

Henri shrugged. “These days, there's no politics in it. Just cycling.”

“In France? That is politics.”

“You know, sometimes you are very French, for a German.”

“I'll take that as a compliment. So is there another German here? Monsieur Hebel?”

“He's in room 28,” said Henri. “Second floor. You're to go straight up, Monsieur Wolf.”

I nodded. “You know Robin Maugham, don't you?”

“Of course.”

“How well does he know Monsieur Hebel?”

“Well enough to have a drink with him.”

“Once? Or more than once?”

“More than once, I should say.”

I paused for a moment, wondering if I should tell him about
Spinola, and then rejected the idea. I wasn't in the mood to field a lot of questions to which I had no answers. All I wanted was to get the negative and the photographs and then leave without any complications.

“I suppose you heard about poor Spinola?” he said.

“Yes. The cops came to see me at the Grand, asking about our game tomorrow night.”

“He was a nice man and a good customer. I'll miss him.”

“Me, too. How did you hear?”

“I have a friend in Maréchal Foch.”

The Avenue Maréchal Foch was where the Nice Commissariat of Police was headquartered.

“He's an inspector in the Police Judiciaire. He seems to think there was a woman involved.”

“According to all your best writers, there usually is. But did he say why?”

“No. Only this and the fact that he was shot. With a small-caliber pistol.”

“Maybe that's what makes them think it was a woman. The small-caliber pistol, I suppose.”

“Monsieur, small or large, it makes little difference when the bullet goes straight through your heart. There was almost five liters of blood on the floor where they found him.” Henri shrugged in that Gallic way, which is as eloquent as anything ever written by Voltaire or Montaigne. “I suppose that this is the end of your weekly bridge games with Mr. and Mrs. Rose. Pity. I shall miss you all.”

I shrugged. “You know, Henri, there's an unwritten rule in bridge that when your partner gets killed you're supposed to try and find out who did it.”

“Sounds more like the Mafia.”

“It just makes it easier to replace a partner if you can find out why the previous one was killed. No one likes to take the seat of someone who's been shot.”

“I can imagine.”

“What I'm saying is that if your friend in the PJ finds out any more about what happened to Spinola, then I'd like to know about it. You know? For old times' sake. Italy and Germany. The Axis.”

“And perhaps to even the score?”

“That was yesterday. Today, I'd just like to help, if I can. But to help, I need more information.”

He nodded. “This I can understand. Sure. I'll ask him.”

“Discreetly. I wouldn't like his answers to turn into awkward questions for you or me, or anyone else for that matter.”

“Of course. And you can trust me. During the war we used to say that deliberation is the work of many, but action of one man alone.”

“It's been a while since I saw myself in that light. But I am qualified in one respect. I am a man alone.”

I
took the stairs and walked along the thickly carpeted hall to room 28, where I knocked and waited patiently, although anyone observing the scene might have thought differently because of the gun I was holding in my hand—Hebel's gun. It was pointed straight at the door handle, a last-minute decision that was calculated to try and put an end to the blackmail right then and there.

The smile he was wearing as he opened up flickered for a moment as he backed away with his hands rising slowly behind his neatly combed head.

“No need for guns. What is this?”

“It's your gun. That's what this is.” I kicked the room door shut behind me and tossed the Pan Am flight bag on the bed. “I thought you might recognize it.”

“My gun?”

“Yes. It was in your drawer next to the note for me.”

“Did you read it?”

“No. There's nothing you have to say that's of any interest to me.”

“I see.”

“No, you don't. This is not what you think, at all. I intend to search your room and make sure that I get the negative and all the prints—not to mention any other items you might be saving so you can squeeze the lemon again. That's just good business.” I pointed the hole in the end of the gun at the carpet. “On your knees. It's been a while since I shot anyone just to wound them and I certainly wouldn't like to answer for the present state of my marksmanship, so you'd better not try anything.”

Hebel knelt down at the edge of the bed and started to relax a little.

“Look, Gunther, I'm not armed. In spite of any evidence to the contrary, guns are always a mistake in this business. They're generally a sign that negotiations have failed.”

“Is that what you call it? They'll be asking you to address the UN General Assembly next.”

“There's very little here but do go ahead and search. You'll find the envelope with the prints and the neg on top of the chest of drawers. As I agreed with Herr Maugham. And I really don't
have anything else for sale. Fifty thousand dollars—I assume it's in the flight bag—is a big score for me. Enough to retire on.”

I found the envelope, and having established the promised contents were indeed there, I opened the drawers and generally had a good look around his room. It was a nice room, with a fine view of the harbor. Nothing as grand as the Grand, but nice and comfortable and tastefully decorated. I almost preferred it.

“One thing I learned with the Berlin police,” I told him. “Money's like a state pension. There's never enough to retire on. Especially when you're a crook.”

“I suppose you're not going to pay me now.”

“That's the general idea, smart guy.”

“But you still brought the money. You went to the house and fetched the money and now you're here. Which must mean—no, don't tell me that you're planning to keep it yourself?”

“I thought about it.”

“Suppose I tell Mr. Maugham.”

“Suppose I slap your mouth with this pistol. Dentists aren't so easy to find on a Sunday evening.”

“You know we could split the money. Fifty-fifty. With my silence guaranteed.”

“That would mean me becoming your partner. And that's not going to happen, not after what happened in Königsberg.”

“Ah. I was wondering when we'd get to that.” He shook his head. “Look, that was all a very long time ago.”

“Hard to forget, though.”

“Perhaps you should try. If you'd read my letter in the drawer
at the Grand you'd have seen my apology for that. Not that this matters very much. We're all friends in Europe now, aren't we? Allies in the struggle against world Communism?”

“The way I figure it is this. With or without the fifty thousand dollars, you'll either come back with something else you want to sell, or you won't. A print you kept back. Or something altogether different. A letter, perhaps. Simple as that. My guess is that you will be back. Because you people always come back. I haven't forgotten the way you and that bastard Otto Schmidt squeezed poor Captain von Frisch for five years. I don't think you're the kind of leopard who knows where to buy a tin of paint or find a good plastic surgeon.”

“Suppose I tell the police who you really are?”

“And suppose I tell them exactly how you know that? Involving the cops is bad for us both, and you know it. My guess is that we're both wanted men, in one half of Germany or the other. Frankly, you should be glad I don't put a hole in you, which is what you deserve.”

“My dead body would be a little hard to explain.”

“People have disappeared from this hotel before. During the war the Resistance met here.”

“Oh. Well, it can't have been very effective, that's all I can say. I seem to recall this part of France was Nazi in all but name. Don't you agree?”

“I think it's time that you started answering the questions, not me.”

“I've got nothing to say that you don't already know.”

“I don't think so. When you squeeze a lemon, you flex your fist more than once.”

“Not this time.”

I picked up a pillow, folded it over the Sig, and pointed it at the heel of one of his handmade shoes.

“You're not serious.”

“Let's start with where you got the picture.”

“You know what these queers are like. Can't trust any of them.”

“A name.”

“Louis Legrand.”

“Where did you buy it? Here in France? Where?”

“Here in France. In Nice.”

“When?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“Now tell me what else you have got on the old man, or I'll put one through your heel. It won't kill you, but you'll never walk again without the aid of a stick.”

“Nothing. There's nothing else, I promise. Just the neg and the prints in the envelope. Since you have my pistol you've obviously searched my room at the Grand and I daresay my car as well. You know I'm telling you the truth.”

“Stop wasting my time.” I kneed him in the back and sent him sprawling onto the carpet. “We both know it wouldn't be in the least bit like you to bet everything on the one hand. That's not how your kind of salesman works. You squeeze the lemon until there's no juice in him and the pips have fallen out. So
you're going to tell me where you've stashed the rest of your samples, or I swear you're only leaving this room in a wheelchair.”

I pressed the muzzle of the Sig against his Achilles to underline my meaning; I don't know that I would actually have shot him, but he wasn't to know that.

“All right, all right, I'll tell you.”

I let him up onto his knees again, but he was slow to get started so I flicked his earlobe with the Sig a couple of times to encourage his soul—assuming he had one—to unburden itself.

“I'd forgotten what a violent temper you have, Gunther. There's a fury in you I just didn't remember.”

“You should see me when I can't find my cigarettes. So talk, before I give you an ear piercing you won't ever forget.”

“There's a tape,” he said.

“What kind of a tape?”

“A tape. BASF. AEG. I don't know. A sound recording.”

“Of what, exactly?”

“A man speaking. You might say that it's a sort of confession.”

“Who is this man?”

“Ah, now this is where it gets interesting.”

I listened carefully as he started to describe what was on the tape. At first I was confused and then surprised, and then not really surprised at all. The whole thing sounded very clever. Too clever for an ordinary Fritz like me. Which is what I had half suspected all along. The only really strange part was that Hebel had decided to involve me in the whole rotten transaction. Then again, I seem to have a talent for finding trouble; it
certainly seems to have no trouble in finding me. This couldn't have looked more like trouble if someone had erected the word in fifty-foot-high letters on the summit of nearby Mont Boron. After a while he could see his explanation had made a real impression on me and he felt confident enough to stand up and go and help himself from the bottle of schnapps on the bedside table and light a cigarette without me waving the gun in his face again.

“You want one?” he asked, and poured a short glass for me anyway. “You look as though you need one.”

I took it from his hand and downed it quickly. It was good schnapps, cold as the Frisches Haff in January, and just the way I like it.

“Where is it now, this tape?”

“Safe. I'll let you have a copy tomorrow so you can deliver it to the Villa Mauresque where Herr Maugham can listen to it at his leisure. I'll even lend him my tape recorder so he can play it. Anyway, I expect he'll know what to do next. After that the old man will have forty-eight hours to raise two hundred thousand dollars. Shouldn't be too difficult given that he's already raised fifty thousand of it. Let's say that I'm letting you have the picture free as a sign of my good faith.”

“You've come a long way since blackmailing warm boys in the lavatories at Potsdamer Platz station,” I said. “I can see how you could squeeze Somerset Maugham. But this—this strikes me as foolhardy.”

“Some lemons are bigger than others, but they'll squeeze
just as easily. I learned that from the Nazis. Hitler's grandmother was a practiced blackmailer, did you know that?”

“It doesn't surprise me.”

When he'd finished talking I sat on the edge of the bed and thought things over for a minute or two before I spoke again.

“I'm not supposed to be here,” I said.

“Certainly you are. I suggested to Herr Maugham that you would be the man best placed to help him. You're here because he needs you. And if it comes to that, so do I. You're a perfect cutout, Bernie. Reliable. Intelligent. With much to lose. Useful to me, and to Herr Maugham.”

I shook my head. “What I mean is, I should be dead.”

“All of us who survived the war were fortunate,” said Hebel, and poured me another glass. “You and me perhaps especially so.”

“Were we? I wonder. Anyway, I'm not supposed to be alive right now. A little while ago I tried to kill myself. I sat in the garage with the car engine running and just waited for it to happen. I'm still not exactly sure why I kept on breathing air and not Fina gasoline but, for a while, I understood what death really is. Of course we all know we're going to die. But until it happens, none of us really understands what it means to be dead. Me, I understood it, perfectly. I even saw the beauty of it. You see, Hebel, you don't die; death isn't something that just happens to you, no. It's like you become death. You're a part of it. All those billions who've lived and then died before you. You've joined them. And when you've felt that, it never goes away, even if you
think you're still alive. Just remember that when all this is over. Just remember that it was you who chose to involve a dead man like me in your little scheme.”

After that I told him we—by which I meant me and my client—would be in touch as soon as we'd listened to the tape. Then I collected the envelope with the photographs and the neg, the Pan Am flight bag with the money, pushed the muzzle of the gun under my waistband, and, without another word, left the room.

Downstairs in the hotel lobby, I returned to the front desk.

“When you speak to your friend in the PJ see what he can find out about a man called Louis Legrand.”

“I already did,” said Henri, writing down the name. “Speak to my friend, I mean. She left her scarf.”

“Who did?”

“The woman suspected of Spinola's murder. I called my friend in the PJ and asked him, like you asked. Whoever it was shot him left a green chiffon scarf beside his dead body.”

“Is that all? Now, with her underwear they might have proved something. Sexual behavior. Hair color. Who she likes for the Tour de France. Anything.”

“It was in his hand. The scarf. Chances are she was wearing it when she shot him, at pretty close range, too. There was a powder burn on his shirt. So it must have been someone he trusted. That's what my friend says, anyway.”

“Hmm.”

“What does ‘hmm' mean?”

“I'm not a detective. So it means I really don't know what to think about it, Henri.”

Of course this was hardly a surprise, given everything else that was now crowding in upon my mind; my head must have looked like a stowaway's cabin on the ship in that Marx Brothers film. But most of the floor space was taken up with the realization that the whole thing involving Maugham hadn't been much to do with blackmailing him, at all. Not really. That had just been the hors d'oeuvre. Hebel had something else for sale. Something much more important than a photograph of some naked men cavorting around a swimming pool in 1937. That had been nothing more than a lure, designed to secure everyone's attention. To establish some credentials. Well, now he had them established, as if he had just presented them at the court of St. James while wearing white gloves and carrying a cocked hat with ostrich feathers.

“I did what you asked,” he said resentfully. “He was a good man, Spinola.”

“Sure, sure. I'll look into it, okay, Henri? Maybe I'll find something relevant. Maybe.”

But somehow the name of the woman who'd shot and killed our friend Spinola seemed of lesser importance besides an elaborate plot to blackmail the British Secret Intelligence Service.