His eyes followed my inspection with sardonic amusement. “What will you have to drink?”
“A brandy,” I said, grinning at him. I allowed my grin to fade into a rather doubtful grimace; one thing I thought I had learned about Huuygens was how to jar a story out of him. I ran my eye over him again. “Illegality seems to be more profitable than when last we met.”
He placed my order with the waiter who had finally appeared, and then returned his attention to me. “On the contrary,” he said with a faint smile. “I finally took the advice of all my well-meaning friends and discovered, to my complete astonishment, that the rewards of being on the side of the law can be far greater than I had ever anticipated.”
“Oh?” I tried not to sound sceptical.
His eyes twinkled at my poor attempt at deception. “I shall not keep it a secret from you,” he said drily. “I am forced, however, to ask you to keep what I am about to tell you a secret from everyone else.”
I stared at him. “But why?” I asked unhappily.
“In the interests of that law and order you are always extolling,” he replied even more drily. We waited in silence while the waiter placed my brandy before me; he slipped the saucer onto Huuygens’ pile and disappeared. Kek’s eyes were steady upon my face. I shrugged, raised my glass in a small gesture of defeat, and sipped. Huuygens nodded, satisfied with my implied promise, and leaned back.
Now that I realize the benefits that can derive from honesty (Huuygens said smiling in my direction), I shall have to review America again in a different light. However, just after I last saw you, I had not as yet been converted, and since it becomes increasingly embarrassing to sponge on friends, I managed to return to France where I have a cousin I actually enjoy sponging on. Immediately following the war, he and I were sort of partners in black-market foodstuffs, but we split up when I realized that the man was completely dishonest. Besides, in those days, they were beginning to impose the death penalty for this particular naughtiness, and there are limits to the extent I will indulge in gambling — especially with my life.
In any event, there must have been something about foodstuffs that attracted my cousin, because when I got back to Paris, I found he had turned to legality with a vengeance, and was the owner of a chain of what have become known throughout the world as supermarkets. I personally cannot understand the success of these sterile, automated dispensers of comestibles, all so daintily packed in transparent plastic — especially in France, since it is obviously impossible to haggle with a price stamped in purple ink on the bottom of a tin. However, there it is; the fact was that my cousin was rolling in money. And while he was far from pleased to add me to his ménage, even temporarily, there was very little he could do about it. Normally, I hate to stoop to threatening a man with his past, but in his case, it took no great appeasement of my conscience.
For a while, I thought his wife would prove an even greater obstacle. She was built like a corseted Brahma bull, with a trailing mustache, an eye like a laser beam, and a voice that made me think of nothing so much as a shovel being dragged across rough concrete. However, he apparently explained to her the alternatives to my presence, and after that, she was actually quite innocuous.
Do not think that I was pleased myself to be in this position of practically begging, but there was nothing else I could do. Even the most modest of schemes requires capital, and I was broke. And while I could bring myself to accept — and even insist upon — my cousin’s hospitality, I could not use my knowledge of his past to extract money from him. It would have been against my principles. However, the situation wasn’t all bad; my cousin had a fine cook, a nubile and willing housemaid, an extensive library and an excellent cellar, so I found myself settling in quite comfortably and actually even in danger of vegetating.
One evening, however, my cousin returned home in a preoccupied mood. Throughout dinner, a time he usually spent in alternately stuffing himself and listing his assets, he sat quiet and scowling at his plate, nor did he touch his dessert. Something was obviously wrong, and on the offhand chance that it might involve me or my sinecure in his home, I nailed him immediately after dinner in the library.
“Stavros,” I said — you must understand that while both of us were Poles, and I had long since adopted the fiction of being Dutch, my cousin, for reasons I cannot attempt to explain, preferred the pretense of a Greek background. Maybe it was useful in his business. But I digress. In any event, I said, “Stavros, something is bothering you. Can I be of any assistance to you?”
He began to wave his hand in a fashion to indicate denial, and then he suddenly paused and stared at me thoughtfully through narrowed eyes. “Do you know,” he said slowly, “possibly you can. Certainly if there is some scheme here, some attempt to be over-clever, you would be the ideal one to ferret it out.”
“Scheme?” I asked, and poured myself a generous brandy. I sat down opposite him. “What are you talking about?”
He hesitated as if reluctant to take me into his confidence, but then the weight of his problem overcame his irresolution. He leaned forward. “Do you know anything about supermarkets?”
My eyebrows raised. I was about to give him the same opinions I have just voiced to you, but then I realized it would serve no purpose. “No,” I said simply. “I know that people serve themselves from shelves and pass before a clerk who sums up their purchases. They pay and take the stuff with them. That’s all I do know.”
He nodded. “And that’s all you should know. Or anyone should know. But somebody appears to know something else.” He paused a moment and then leaned forward again. “Kek, in the supermarket business, we are used to pilfering — small items that women put into their purses, or tuck into a baby carriage beneath the blankets; things that children steal and sometimes eat right in the store, or hide in their boots—”
“Horrible!” I murmured.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But — and this is the important thing — we can calculate to the merest fraction of a per cent the exact amount we will lose through this thievery. It is done scientifically, on computers, based on multiple experiences and probability curves, and these calculations are never wrong.” He sighed helplessly. “I mean, they were never wrong before. But now — my God!”
“Tell me,” I suggested.
“Yes,” he said more calmly. “Well, in our largest store, the percentages have gone absolutely berserk! Stealing on a scale that is impossible! And the frightening thing is that we don’t know how it is done!” He pounded one fist against his forehead in desperation. “I have received the report from the detective agency today. I have had detectives pose as customers, as cashiers, as clerks unloading cartons or stamping prices on tins. I have had the store watched, day and night, both from the outside and the inside, week after week — and yet, it continues. I have done everything possible, and now, I am about to go out of my mind. If somebody has discovered a method of pilfering that our system cannot cope with...” He shrugged fatalistically and shivered.
He did not have to spell it out for me. I reached over for the bottle of brandy, nodding sympathetically. “And how does your system work?” I wanted to know.