Midnight in Europe by Alan Furst Read Free Book Online

but most of what the Russians provide is bought on the black market by operatives of the Comintern, the International Communist Party, essentially civilians of strong conviction secretly directed by the NKVD.”
    Like the man with slumped shoulders in his blue overcoat . Did the Russians have him followed in New York because they knew he was going to be a courier for the arms-buying office? Only people in the embassy would have known what he was going to do. Tell Molina this? No. He couldn’t explain why, but no.
    “And I must prevail on you,” Molina said, “to undergo a certain interview with the head of security at the embassy, ColonelZaguan. Forgive me for this, he can be a difficult fellow but I must observe protocol.”
    “Then I will meet with him.”
    “I’ll have my secretary arrange the meeting, at your convenience, Señor Ferrar. And I thank you for your offer of assistance. Now, señor, will you not have a single brioche?”
    Ferrar walked over to the office only to discover that Barabee had canceled their meeting; he’d been summoned to a client’s chateau in the Loire Valley—an emergency, or what the client thought was an emergency. Ferrar worked through the day, then took a taxi home to the Place Saint-Sulpice. Where he changed to a blazer and flannel trousers and then set out for a little Lyonnais place on the rue du Cherche Midi. He knew what he wanted: winter food—layers of sliced potatoes and onions cooked slowly in creamy milk, and half a roast chicken from Bresse, the best chicken in France.
    Hunched over, collar up, the icy, still air burning his face, he told himself he didn’t mind yet one more solitary dinner. But it wasn’t true. He was lonely, he had no woman friend to take to dinner, he had no woman friend to take to bed. At the moment, anyhow—he’d had his share of love affairs in Paris, some of them exciting. He sometimes thought about Eileen Moore, but he saw her only at long intervals and that wouldn’t change. They might be happy together, he believed, but he could not move to New York and Eileen, uprooted from her Manhattan life, would in Paris be lost among strangers. She surely had amours of her own and he sensed that she liked the arrangement they had.
    He reached the restaurant, its windows opaque with steam, and was greeted affectionately; they knew him here. Chez Lucette had only twelve tables; the husband and wife cooked, the daughter served. As dinner companion, Ferrar had brought along a copy of Le Soir , not that he would read it, he simply found staring at anewspaper preferable to staring at a wall. He had an oeuf dur mayonnaise to start, then the pommes lyonnaise and poulet de Bresse arrived, accompanied by a carafe of red wine. The dinner was, as always, very good, and he ate slowly, taking care to enjoy it. Looking up for a moment, he discovered another solitary diner, a woman at a table across the room. She had light brown hair, almost blond, falling in soft waves from a tilted black beret, and, he saw, had brought her own reading, a magazine. As Ferrar stared at her she looked up and their eyes met. Then unmet.
    The French had a very sensible theory that the office and the dinner table should be kept separate, but Ferrar could not stop himself from going back over his meeting with Molina. He had seemed genial and forthcoming, but he was a diplomat and it was his job to seem so. What was the old joke? Ferrar had to reconstruct the logic but soon enough he had it right. “When a lady says ‘no’ she means ‘maybe.’ When a lady says ‘maybe’ she means ‘yes.’ But if a lady says ‘yes’ she’s no lady. When a diplomat says ‘yes’ he means ‘maybe.’ When a diplomat says ‘maybe’ he means ‘no.’ But if a diplomat says ‘no’ he’s no diplomat.” Ferrar wondered idly what it would be like to do what Molina did—would he be content with that kind of work? He took the last sip of wine in his glass and reached for the carafe. The woman