‘We could get you some,’ offered Hermann — merde, even when bluffing he could be blithe about it!
‘How?’ asked Rudi. He wouldn’t let on to these two what he knew. Not yet. But in the past Hermann had often been a useful source, a student of the black market, so one had best make a pretence of being attentive.
‘Two lorries. Drivers who won’t say anything. Yourself and myself, I think,’ said Hermann. ‘Tonight would be best. Let’s set it for 22:00 hours, me to meet you and the lorries, you to choose the meeting place.’
‘Honey … Whose honey, mein Lieber?’ puzzled Rudi softly.
Hermann gave the shrug he always did when meaning, It could be anyone’s, so why bother worrying?
Was Hermann slipping? wondered Rudi. Had the Kripo’s most disloyal Detektiv left little messages along his route today only to forget all about them? ‘Oskar,’ he indicated the little ball bearing of silver and gold, ‘is very well placed, my Hermann. But it’s good you’ve come to me — yes, yes it is. Oskar could do a lot for you and this one.’ He indicated the Sûreté, the traitor, the patriot who was, at the moment, being treated with felt gloves simply because Gestapo Boemelburg needed him to fight common crime and keep the people quiet. ‘I’m certain of it, Hermann. Herr Schlacht is a man of many talents and a valued client. Enjoy your dinners. Drink your beer. They’re on the house.’
Rudi abruptly got up, deliberately knocking the table a little and sloshing their beer. ‘Now wait!’ bleated Hermann. ‘Sit down, eh? Come on. We’re friends.’
‘And friends are what you and this one need.’
Sacré nom de nom, were things that bad? cursed St-Cyr and managed — yes, managed somehow to dig the serving spoon into the platter and load his plate without spilling a drop.
‘You’ve such splendid linen, Herr Sturmbacher. Everything complements the meal.’ Beer instead of wine!
Louis stabbed a chunk of sausage and brought it up to let those nostrils of his flare as he drew in the aroma — no cat meat, no rat meat, no sawdust either, thought Kohler.
Repeatedly dumbfounded by Louis’s coolness in the face of a crisis, he watched as his partner and friend blew on the morsel, chewed it slowly as a connoisseur would, and pronounced it magnificent.
‘Don’t try to flatter me,’ breathed Rudi. ‘I know it’s perfect. So, eat, yes, and let’s talk a little. This is serious, Hermann, and you’d better listen.’
Word had got to Rudi from Frau Hillebrand of the Procurement Office. Whispers of a birdcage had come from Schlacht himself.
‘The Hotel Drouot, Hermann. As you were consorting with a certain chanteuse who shall remain nameless, a call was being placed from the ground floor. I could even hear crockery in the background.’
‘He’s lost his little badge,’ swallowed Kohler. ‘I should have told him where it was.’
‘Certainly not here and not with the Bzp Qbergruppenführer Denke who is, I believe, already heading for the Russian Front, courtesy of the Kommandant von Gross-Paris. Your miliciens, by the way, were taken directly to the Santé and shot. I … why I just thought you ought to know, Hermann, that when a flea tickles an ear these days, the elephant is likely to sneeze.’
Or fart! ‘It’s the trunk you mean. The flea tickles the elephant’s trunk, Rudi,’ muttered Hermann. He hadn’t meant for those two to be shot, thought St-Cyr, but had merely felt a few years of forced labour would have been good for them.
‘Eat,’ urged the mountain. ‘Don’t let that little taste of home you wanted go to waste. It’ll be in every mouthful.’
The two of them dug in. Mein Gott, but they discovered they were hungry! Beer was taken. Bread — good Bavarian Roggenbrot — was broken and savoured with tears, so gut. Ja gut! ‘Now listen. you get that little badge for me, you two, and I will forget we even spoke of it. Oskar separates the honey when he recovers the wax, and a little of that “sweetness” already comes to me.’
Ah Scheisse! ‘He also makes little wafers for you, doesn’t he?’ gulped Kohler.
Rudi brushed ham-fat fingers over the linen before sampling the sausage. He toyed with a curled wedge of pork rind, judged it crisp enough and fully flavoured. ‘I did not hear that, Hermann. The restaurant pays for itself. What little is left, is sent home to my parents who are getting on and finding things somewhat more difficult than anticipated.’
But to send money home from an occupied territory was illegal, therefore Rudi had to have another route. Switzerland …? The wafers are going there, thought Kohler. Merde but hadn’t he stepped in the shit this time! ‘I’ll get you the badge, Rudi. That’s a promise. No problem.’
‘If this beekeeper of yours was murdered, who cares, eh, Jean-Louis? What? Is the sauerkraut not to your liking?’
‘No. No, it’s perfect, Herr Sturmbacher.’
‘And you’re not even sure it was murder, are you?’
Had the news travelled so fast and in such detail? ‘Not yet, but I believe we will soon be satisfied. One thing does puzzle me, but I …’
Louis left the thought dangling while he helped himself to more from the platter and then peered deeply into his stein.
‘Helga … Helga, meine Schwester, another beer for each of my friends,’ sang out Rudi.
The whole restaurantheard it, a good sign. ‘Danke,’ said St-Cyr. ‘You see, Rudi — may I call you that when in …’ He indicated the cosy friendship of their table and said, ‘In such Gemütlichkeit?’
‘Herr Sturmbacher, I think.’
‘Gut! It’s always best for me to be reminded of where I sit in this Occupation of yours. You see, Herr Sturmbacher, the victim was what we French call an original and this, I feel, must have contributed much to his demise.’
‘He doted on his daughter,’ confided Kohler, quickly picking up the thread Louis wanted him to pick up.
‘But hated and despised his son,’ said the Sûreté.
‘Whom the mother loved with a mother’s love, thereby all but totally rejecting the daughter, Rudi,’ insisted Kohler.
‘Who held the couple together and fed them as well as she could.’
‘And helped her father with his bees.’
‘While revering her brother.’
‘Who hadn’t shared the same father with her,’ tut-tutted Hermann.
‘And remains lost in a prisoner-of-war camp in the Reich.’
‘Oflag 17A, Rudi,’ swore Hermann, sadly shaking his head. ‘A Kriegsgefangener.’
‘A Kriege,’ echoed the mountain, giving the slang for such and immediately taking note of what these two were really after. ‘I’ll see what I can do, Hermann. The badge in return for a little help.’
‘Maxim’s,’ breathed Hermann conspiratorially. ‘Did our Bonze of the gold wafers and the candle wax pay the fifty thousand francs down for her to get her son released? Save us time, Rudi, and the expense of going to that restaurant. You know the beer there always gives me gas, the soup also.’
‘Candles …?’ asked the mountain, ignoring the question of Maxim’s, but had he forgotten he’d mentioned Schlacht separated the honey when recovering the wax, wondered St-Cyr, or was he but testing the air for the perfume of how much they really knew?
‘Old Shatter Hand coughed up that crap about the candles,’ confessed Hermann, shrugging broadly.
These two were known for the speed and ruthlessly thorough determination with which they sought their answers and steadfastly upheld the truth. One law for all and only one, the fools. ‘Oskar does make candles, yes.’
‘Where?’ shot Hermann, forgetting about Maxim’s for the moment.
‘That I do not know nor ask. Really, meine Lieben, have you not listened? Can you not realize who your friends should be? Der Führer has …’