فصل سی و یکم

31

THE PLAINCLOTHES OFFICER RENE Aden waited outside Trebelaux’s hotel until he saw the light go out in the third-floor walk-up. Then he went to the train station for a fast snack and was lucky to return to his post in time to see Trebelaux come out of the hotel again carrying a gym bag.

Trebelaux took a taxi from the line outside the Gare de l’Este and crossed the Seine to a steam bath in the Rue de Babylone and went inside. Aden parked his unmarked car in a fire zone, counted fifty and went into the lobby area. The air was thick and smelled of liniment. Men in bathrobes were reading newspapers in several languages.

Aden did not want to take off his clothes and pursue Trebelaux into the steam. He was a man of some resolution but his father had died of trench foot and he did not want to take off his shoes in this place. He took a newspaper on its wooden holder from a rack and sat down in a chair.

Trebelaux clopped in clogs too short for him through successive rooms of men slumped on the tile benches, giving themselves up to the heat.

The private saunas could be rented by the fifteen-minute interval. He went into the second one. His entry had already been paid. The air was thick and he wiped his glasses on his towel.

“What kept you,” Leet said out of the steam. “I’m about to dissolve.” “The clerk didn’t give me the message until I’d already gone to bed,” Trebelaux said.

“The police were watching you today at the Jeu de Paume; they know the Guardi you sold me is hot.” “Who put them onto me? You?”

“Hardly. They think you know who has the paintings from Lecter Castle. Do you?” “No. Maybe my client does.”

“If you get the other ‘Bridge of Sighs,’ I can move both of them,” Leet said.

“Where could you sell them?”

“That’s my business. A major buyer in America. Let’s say an institution. Do you know anything, or am I sweating for nothing?” “I’ll get back to you,” Trebelaux said. On the following afternoon, Trebelaux bought a ticket for Luxembourg at the Gare de l’Este. Officer Aden watched him board the train with his suitcase. The porter seemed dissatisfied with his tip.

Aden made a quick call to the Quai des Orfèvres and swung aboard the train at the last moment, cupping his badge in his hand for the conductor.

Night fell as the train approached its stop at Meaux. Trebelaux took his shaving kit to the bathroom. He hopped off the train just as it began to roll, abandoning his suitcase.

A car was waiting for him a block from the station.

“Why here?” Trebelaux said as he got in beside the driver. “I could have come to your place in Fontainebleau.” “We have business here,” said the man behind the wheel. “Good business.” Trebelaux knew him as Christophe Kleber.

Kleber drove to a café near the station, where he ate a hearty dinner, lifting his bowl to drink the vichyssoise. Trebelaux toyed with a salad Nicoise and wrote his initials on the edge of the plate with string beans.

“The police seized the Guardi,” Trebelaux said as Kleber’s veal paillard arrived.

“So you told Hercule. You shouldn’t say those things on the telephone. What is the question?” “They’re telling Leet it was looted in the East. Was it?” “Of course not. Who’s asking the question?”

“A police inspector with a list from Arts and Monuments. He said it was stolen. Was it?” “Did you look at the stamp?”

“A stamp from the Commissariat of Enlightenment, what is that worth?” Trebelaux said.

“Did the policeman say who it belonged to in the East? If it’s a Jew it doesn’t matter, the Allies are not sending back art taken from Jews. The Jews are dead. The Soviets just keep it.” “It’s not a policeman, it’s a police inspector,” said Trebelaux.

“Spoken like a Swiss. What’s his name?”

“Popil, something Popil.”

“Ah,” Kleber said, mopping his mouth with his napkin. “I thought so. No difficulty then. He has been on my payroll for years. It’s just a shakedown. What did Leet tell him?” “Nothing yet, but Leet sounds nervous. For now he’ll lay it on Kopnik, his dead colleague,” Trebelaux said.

“Leet knows nothing, not an inkling of where you got the picture?” “Leet thinks I got it in Lausanne, as we agreed. He’s squealing for his money back. I said I would check with my client.” “I own Popil, I’ll take care of it, forget the whole thing. I have something much more important to talk with you about. Could you possibly travel to America?” “I don’t take things through customs.”

“Customs is not your problem, only the negotiations while you’re there. You have to see the stuff before it goes, then you see it again over there, across a table in a bank meeting room. You could go by air, take a week.” “What sort of stuff?”

“Small antiquities. Some icons, a salt cellar. We’ll take a look, you tell me what you think.” “About the other?”

“You are safe as houses,” Kleber said.

Kleber was his name only in France. His birth name was Petras Kolnas and he knew Inspector Popil’s name, but not from his payroll.