The Other Side of Silence

I was on my mid-morning break before I opened the envelope and carefully read Hebel’s typewritten instructions on how and where and when the blackmail money was to be paid. Then I went into the back office and called Somerset Maugham at the Villa Mauresque, and when his friend and secretary, Alan, fetched him to the phone, I told the old man to have the money ready for collection that same evening.

“He’s made contact then?” Maugham was speaking German, which suited me fine; he seemed to like speaking German to me.

“Yes.”

“What did you think of him?”

“The same thing I thought more than ten years ago. That I’d like to see him dead.”

“The offer’s still there.”

“No, thanks. I don’t care to murder anybody, Mr. Maugham. Even the people I don’t much like.”

“Can he be trusted?”

“No, of course he can’t. He’s a snake. But this is a big payday for him, and he’ll want things to proceed without any problems. So, to that extent, everything should go according to plan. At least tonight. After that, your guess is as good as mine.”

“How shall I pack it? The money, I mean. In a parcel?”

“A parcel would have to be unwrapped so the money could be counted. No, anything that slows things down tonight is to be avoided. A bag would be good. Preferably one that you don’t mind giving away to a bastard like Hebel.”

“Would a Pan American Airlines flight bag be suitable, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Can that hold fifty thousand dollars?”

“I should say so.”

“In which case, use it. Either way, have the money ready by seven o’clock. The meet is at eight. I’ll bring the negative and the photograph straight to the Villa Mauresque, as soon as I have them.”

“Fifty thousand dollars,” he exclaimed grumpily. “Must be the most expensive fucking photograph in history.”

“A picture can tell a thousand words. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Christ, I hope not. Otherwise I’m out of f-fucking work.”

“Look, sir, it’s probably best that none of the words that this particular picture can tell are ever heard outside of a Turkish bathhouse or a novel by Marcel Proust. So you’d best reconcile yourself to paying up.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Wolf. Fifty thousand dollars is fifty thousand dollars.”

“You’re right. And I’ll admit, fifty thousand pictures of Washington are fifty thousand stories I’d love to hear. So, don’t pay him. Tell him to go to hell and take the flak. It’s up to you, sir. But sometimes, when it’s absolutely necessary, everyone has to eat flies.”

“Suppose I give you the money and you drive straight for the Italian border? You could be in Genoa before midnight and on a boat to fuck knows where.”

“And leave my wonderful job here at the Grand Hotel? I don’t think so. Every man likes to delude himself that he has some moral standards. For years I told myself that I was the most honest man I’d ever met. Of course, that was easy enough in Nazi Germany. But why take my word for it? Mark a few bills. Take a few serial numbers. I’d be easy enough to trace. I daresay even the French police wouldn’t have too much of a struggle to find me or it. Come to think of it, do that anyway. You never know.”

The rest of Sunday passed slowly as it often does, especially when there is an important task to be completed at the end of it. Hebel came back to the hotel just after lunch and went straight to his room without so much as a glance in my direction. He was a cool one, I’ll say that for him. I went out to his car and searched it; there was a brochure from the perfume factory in Grasse and I concluded that this was where he’d been. Meanwhile, the small of my back had started hurting, which is not unusual when I’ve been on my feet for much of the day, and I was keen to get home and have a bath. But first I had an important job to do. As soon as Hebel went out again-around six-I took his key and went upstairs to search the German’s room. I was nibbling around at the edge of his viperous person, keen to see what else he might have among his high-quality possessions that was potentially compromising to my vulnerable and easily compromised client. Letters, perhaps, or another photograph. It was my idea of room service. He had left nothing of value to him in the hotel safe, I knew, because I would certainly have known about it, and nothing in his car, either. That left his hotel suite and, perhaps, as I had suggested to Maugham, some local lawyer with a strong room and a weekly retainer. What I did find was surprising, although not in the way I might have expected.

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