“Why must it be Hannibal? This man must have many enemies, you said he was a war criminal.”
Popil pushed forward the ID photo. “This is how he looked in life.” Popil took a sketch from his portfolio, the first of a series. “This is how Hannibal drew him and put the drawing on the wall of his room.” Half the face in the sketch was dissected, the other half clearly Dortlich.
“You were not in his room by invitation.”
Popil was suddenly angry. “Your pet snake has killed a man. Probably not the first, as you would know better than I. Here are others,” he said, putting down sketches. “This was in his room, and this and this and this. That face is from the Nuremberg Trials, I remember it. They are fugitives and now they will kill him if they can.”
“And the Soviet police?”
“They are inquiring quietly in France. A Nazi like Dortlich on the People’s Police is an em
barrassment to the Soviets. They have his file now from Stasi in the GDR.”
“If they catch Hannibal—”
“If they catch him in the East, they’ll just shoot him. If he gets out, they might let the case wither and die if he keeps his mouth shut.”
“Would you let it wither and die?”
“If he strikes in France he’ll go to prison. He could lose his head.” Popil stopped moving. His shoulders slumped.
Popil put his hands in his pockets.
Lady Murasaki took her hands out of her sleeves.
“You would be deported,” he said. “I would be unhappy. I like to see you.”
“Do you live by your eyes alone, Inspector?”
“Does Hannibal? You would do anything for him, wouldn’t you?”
She started to say something, some qualifier to protect herself, and then she just said “Yes,” and waited.
“Help him. Help me. Pascal.” She had never said his first name before.
“Send him to me.”
46
THE RIVER ESSONNE, smooth and dark, slid past the warehouse and beneath the black houseboat moored to a quay near Vert le Petit. Its low cabins were curtained. Telephone and power lines ran to the boat. The leaves of the container garden were wet and shiny.
The ventilators were open on the deck. A shriek came out of one of them. A woman’s face appeared at one of the lower portholes, agonized, cheek pressed against the glass, and then a thick hand pushed the face away and jerked the curtain closed. No one saw.
A light mist made halos around the lights on the quay but directly overhead a few stars shone through. They were too weak and watery to read.
Up on the road, a guard at the gate shined his light into the van marked Café de L’Este and, recognizing Petras Kolnas, waved him into the barbed-wire parking compound.
Kolnas walked quickly through the warehouse, where a workman was painting out the markings on appliance crates stenciled U.S. POST EXCHANGE, NEUILLY. The warehouse was jammed with boxes and Kolnas weaved through them to come out onto the quay.
A guard sat beside the boat’s gangway at a table made from a wooden box. He was eating a sausage with his pocketknife and smoking at the same time. He wiped his hands on his handkerchief to perform a pat-down, then recognized Kolnas and sent him past with a jerk of his head.
Kolnas did not meet often with the others, having a life of his own. He went about his restaurant kitchen with his bowl, sampling everything, and he had gained weight since the war.
Zigmas Milko, lean as ever, let him into the cabin.
Vladis Grutas was on a leather settee getting a pedicure from a woman with a bruise on her cheek. She looked cowed and was too old to sell. Grutas looked up with the pleasant, open expression that was often a sign of temper. The boat captain played cards at a chart table with a boulder-bellied thug named Mueller, late of the SS Dirlewanger Brigade, whose prison tattoos covered the back of his neck and his hands and continued up his sleeves out of sight. When Grutas turned his pale eyes on the players, they folded the cards and left the cabin.
Kolnas did not waste time on greetings.