St-Cyr knew he’d have to lie like Tarzan.
The water had a skin. He added some to the pastis anyway. He’d take his time.
The green became cloudy – Philippe had thought it magic. Philippe … He shut the boy out of his mind and took a sip. ‘So, what Talbotte would not have told you is that this thing is very much a matter of the Resistance and that they’ve got your number.’
‘We’re waiting,’ breathed the mountain.
The two of them were now behind the bar. ‘Yvette Noel was executed for her part in things. Now it is your turn, and that of Mademoiselle Arcuri. They’re serious. Talbotte hasn’t been able to make contact with them, and neither have the Gestapo or the SD, but I have.’
‘We’re still waiting,’ said Leon.
Would they now think to set their knives on the bar? So, okay, my friends, here goes. ‘Last night my partner chased a couple on a borrowed Wehrmacht motorcycle. During the chase one of the saddlebags fell off and guess what?’
‘You do the guessing,’ grunted the mountain.
‘Incendiaries,’ said St-Cyr, reaching for his glass. ‘Property of the Sicherheitsdienst over on the avenue Foch, though don’t ask me how the Resistance got them. These incendiaries are of a new type – perhaps you’ve seen them, eh?’ He gave the brothers a moment. ‘They have excellent timers – delays of up to four hours. You know how those people in the SD are. Always playing games. Murders, countersubversion, actions against the Jews and political people, et cetera, et cetera. Well, along with the incendiaries was the address of your club.’
‘We’re still waiting,’ offered Leon, but this time he reached for a bottle of marc and poured his brother and himself a shot.
St-Cyr raised his glass and said, ‘Salut!
‘We’re still waiting,’ said Remi.
No one could have guessed what the two of them were thinking. ‘So, okay. It’s what was in the other saddlebag, eh? Six more of those little beauties – six, my friends! Our contact tells us that the lover of one of the Resistance people loaned the couple that bike and that the Resistance plan to use you as an example to others. You won’t know who carries those nasty little things into the club and you won’t know when they’ll be set to explode because, my friends, one of them has a boyfriend in the German Army and this kid has got his heart set on deserting rather than face the prospect of the Russian Front. Or perhaps it’s merely for love, who knows, eh? Sex is a funny thing. People do the craziest things because of it, isn’t that so?’
St-Cyr took a sip and held the pastis on the back of his tongue. They’d either buy the story or forget it, but they couldn’t afford not to give it some consideration.
The brothers ignored their drinks. It could be true. It was far more likely the puddle of a departing goose.
Remi Rivard fingered the rim of his glass. They could leave it but what was this flic really playing at? Elements of truth mixed in with fiction? ‘What do you want in exchange?’
A wise people, the Corsicans. ‘Another pastis and a few answers. Talbotte can screw himself as far as we’re concerned. We’ll pick the boy and his girlfriend up and throw a wrench into their little plans but only if you co-operate. Otherwise,’ he shrugged, ‘we can always leave them for a few more days just to make sure we catch the lot of them.’
It was the shorter one, Leon, who made the decisions but there was no nod to his brother, nothing but the slightest movement of the eyes, or had it been the way he’d put his weight on the left foot?
St-Cyr dug deeply into a pocket and took out the pair of dice he’d had since joining the Surete. Much worn, the ivory dull and yellowed by innumerable nights spent tossing them while trying to squeeze answers, he held them a moment in his open palm then tossed them on the zinc.
‘A pair of threes,’ he said as if in wonder. ‘Everything in life is such a gamble, eh? The Resistance gamble with their lives, you do it with money and perhaps your lives as well, eh? And I do it. Gabrielle Arcuri does and so did her maid, Yvette Noel. Fire’s a gamble too, especially now with all those planes flying over and keeping the pumper trucks busy elsewhere.’
‘Some guy telephoned Yvette after you and that partner of yours had left the club.’
‘She smiled at me,’ offered Remi. ‘Yvette, she has said, “I have to go out. Tell Mademoiselle Arcuri it’s all going to be fixed.”’
‘Pardon?’ asked St-Cyr, grabbing the dice.
‘Fixed – you know …’ offered the mountain.
‘Yes, of course I know what it means, but are you absolutely certain that’s what she said?’
‘Leon, this prick isn’t worth talking to.’
‘Now wait, my friends. We must be certain, eh? It’s important.’
Remi gripped the edge of the bar as if he were about to lift it out of the way. ‘Fixed, fixed, fixed! In the name of Jesus, what the hell else do you want me to say?’
It was Leon who urged caution. ‘The guy picked her up in a car about half an hour later. By then Yvette had changed her clothes and got dolled up a bit. She was never much, that one. A little lipstick, a bit of perfume maybe, but… Ah, she didn’t have the money to dress.’
‘Are you sure it was a man who picked her up?’
The brothers shrugged. ‘Would a woman have killed her?’ asked Leon.
‘That’s not impossible but, yes, it’s far more likely the murderer was a man,’ offered St-Cyr.
‘But not from the Resistance, eh?’ said the face of ground meat, watching him so closely one could see the ghost of a wily smile behind the suspicion in his eyes.
‘The Resistance don’t drive cars so easily,’ countered St-Cyr. ‘The SS do.’
Ah now, so a certain general was at the top of the list and all that shit about firebombs was just the puddling of a goose. But why had the flic let them know?
St-Cyr gathered in the dice – there was only one way to distract the brothers. He rolled a seven, then an eleven, then snake’s-eyes and a pair of sixes.
‘They do what I tell them to,’ he said.
‘Yvette was happy when she left here,’ offered the mountain. ‘If we’d known that was going to happen to her, we’d have separated his skull even if he was an SS general.’
‘Perhaps you’d better explain the “general” part,’ said St-Cyr. ‘Just for the record.’
Remi, you idiot! thought Leon. Sometimes Remi got carried away, but did he have to fall into that old trap?
‘What my brother means, Inspector, is that the General Ackermann often paid the club a visit. Like a lot of other high-ranking Nazis, he came to hear Gabrielle but that was as far as it went, of this I’m certain. Gabrielle … Ah! some women. You know it with them instinctively, isn’t that so? They don’t sleep around. They’re chaste, even if their soldier husbands have been killed and it’s now more than two years since they’ve had it.’
‘So, why the condoms that were found in her purse?’
‘Rubbers? Gabrielle?’ The brothers were genuinely mystified.
‘Why the working in a place like this?’ asked St-Cyr, striking while he could. ‘Excuse me, my friends, but with that voice and that body, Mademoiselle Arcuri could have done much better. Let’s not kid ourselves, eh? The Lido, the Moulin Rouge, the Alhambra, the Sheherazade, the Cirque Medrano …’
The two of them leaned over the bar. The mountain spoke through his teeth. The Lune Russe, the Deux Anes and the Noctambule, my fine Monsieur the Detective. Gabrielle is an artist, idiot! She writes a lot of her own material, as she did before the war. Is it that you know so little about her? The Lune Russe used to be her place. Night after night, but then she got married and had a son.’
‘So, why did she come to work here?’ The Lune Russe … The Russian Moon …
‘Because … because she did and that’s all there is to it, isn’t that so, Leon? One day she walks in the front door and we see the money she’d bring us. We’re not stupid, eh? Cash … a voice like that’s worth millions. She wanted ten per cent and we gave it to her.’