“Or in prison.”
“I have been in one or two,” he admits. “Not often or for long, but I have been there.”
“I’m amazed you managed to turn your life around. How did you do it?”
Once again Max pulls an ambiguous face that embraces every imaginary possibility. The smallest detail can often wreck the best cover.
“I had a couple of lucky breaks after the war. Friends. Business opportunities.”
“And the odd wealthy woman, perhaps?”
“I don’t think so . . . I forget.”
At that moment, the man Max once was would have created a timely pause, lighting a cigarette with easy elegance. But he no longer smokes, and besides, the gin in his Negroni has upset his stomach. So he does his best to look impassive, wishing he could dissolve a teaspoon of liver salts in a glass of warm water.
“Don’t you feel any nostalgia for those days, Max?”
She is looking at Jorge and Irina, who are still dancing beneath the lanterns in the park. To a rock number, this time. Max watches them move on the floor then stares at the leaves, yellowing in the darkness, or lying shriveled on the ground, next to the tables.
“I feel nostalgia for my youth,” he replies, “or rather for what was attainable because of it. . . . On the other hand, I have found that autumn brings calm. At my age it makes me feel safe, far removed from the shocks of spring.”
“Don’t be so ridiculously polite. Say our age.”
“Never.”
“Idiot.”
A pleasant silence, once more conspiratorial. Mecha reaches into her jacket pocket for some cigarettes, leaves the packet on the table without lighting one.
“I know what you mean,” she says at last. “I feel the same. One day I realized there were more unpleasant people around, hotels were no longer as elegant, and traveling was less fun. Cities were uglier, and men more ill-mannered, less attractive . . . and then the war in Europe swept away the last remnants.”
She falls silent again for a moment.
“Fortunately, I had Jorge,” she adds.
Max nods absentmindedly, reflecting on what she has said. He doesn’t say so, but she is mistaken. At least in his case. His problem isn’t nostalgia for the good old days, but rather something far more clichéd. He spent most of his life struggling to survive in that milieu, to adapt to a world, which, when it collapsed, would end up dragging him down as well. And when that happened, he was too old to start again: life had ceased to be a vast hunting ground abounding in casinos, expensive hotels, transatlantic liners, and luxurious railway trains, where an ambitious young man’s fortunes could be decided by the way he parted his hair or lit a cigarette. Hotels, traveling, cities, ill-mannered, unattractive men, as Mecha had said, with remarkable precision. The old Europe of dance halls and palaces, Ravel’s “Bolero,” and the “Old School Tango” could no longer be contemplated through a champagne glass.
“My God, Max . . . You were a handsome devil. That composure, so refined and roguish at the same time.”
She gazes at him intently, as though scouring his aged features for the attractive youth she once knew. Tamely, with an air of graceful stoicism (on his lips the gentle expression of a man who has accepted the inevitable), he submits to her examination.
“An exceptional story, don’t you think?” she says at last, softly. “You and me . . . Us, the Cap Polonio, Buenos Aires, Nice.”
Perfectly calm, without uttering a word, Max leans forward slightly, seizes her hand, and kisses it.
“What I said the other day was not true,” says Mecha, rewarding the gesture with a dazzling smile. “You look very good for your age.”
He shrugs with the right amount of modesty.
“Now that is untrue. I’m just another old man who has experienced love and loss.”
Her guffaw rouses a few stares from the neighboring tables.
“You old rogue. That’s not yours, either.”
Max holds her gaze.
“Prove it.”
“You looked thirty years younger when you said that. Did you put on that same blank face when the police questioned you?”
“What police?”
They both laugh now. Max, as well, a lot. With pure pleasure.
“You really do look good,” he says. “You were . . . you are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. The most elegant and the most perfect. You seemed to walk through life with a spotlight following your every movement, illuminating you continuously. Like those screen idols who seem to embody the myths they themselves created.”
Mecha’s face has suddenly grown serious. A moment later he sees her smile halfheartedly. As though from a long distance away.
“The spotlight faded long ago.”
“That is untrue,” Max protests.
“Listen, that’s enough. We are two old hypocrites, lying to each other while the youngsters dance.”
“Would you care to dance?”
“Don’t be foolish. Old, presumptuous, and foolish.”
The rhythm of the music has changed again. The singer with the toupee and the sequined jacket is taking a rest, and the band strikes up an arrangement of “Crying in the Chapel”; the couples on the dance floor embrace. Jorge Keller and Irina also dance like that. The young woman rests her head on his shoulder, her arms folded around his neck.
“They seem to be in love,” Max remarks.
“I don’t know if that is the right word. You should see them poring over a chessboard together, analyzing a game. She can be ruthless, while he paces up and down like an angry tiger. . . . Emil Karapetian often has to step in and mediate. But the arrangement seems to work.”
Max is gazing at her again, intently.
“What about you?”
“Oh, well. As I said before, I am the mother. I stay on the sidelines, watching. Ready to meet their needs. Taking care of practical things . . . But I always know my place.”
“You could live your own life.”
“And who says this isn’t my own life?”
She taps her fingers gently on the packet of cigarettes. At last she takes one and Max obligingly lights it for her.
“Your son is very much like you.”
Mecha exhales a puff of smoke and looks at him with sudden wariness.
“In what way?”
“His physique, obviously. Tall and slim. There is something in his eyes when he smiles that reminds me of you. . . . What was his father, the diplomat, like? Honestly, I scarcely remember anything. He was a pleasant, charming fellow, wasn’t he? That dinner in Nice. Little else.”
She listens intently, hidden behind coils of smoke that dissolve in the delicate breeze from the sea nearby.
“You could be his father. . . . Did you never think of that?”
“Don’t talk nonsense. Please.”
“It isn’t nonsense. Just think for a moment. Jorge’s age. He’s twenty-eight. . . . Doesn’t that suggest anything?”
Max moves uneasily in his chair.
“Look. It could have been . . .”
“Anyone? Is that what you were going to say?”
All at once, she seems vexed. Sullen. She puts out her cigarette brusquely, crushing it in the ashtray.
“Don’t worry. He isn’t your son.”
Despite everything, Max can’t get the idea out of his head. He carries on thinking, fretting. Making absurd calculations.
“That last time, in Nice . . .”
“Oh, damn you, Max . . . To hell with you and with Nice.”
The morning was chilly but splendid. Outside the window of the room at the HÔtel de Paris, Monte Carlo, the branches on the trees swayed, shedding the first leaves of autumn in the mistral that had been blowing for days through cloudless skies. Max (hair slicked back, skin perfumed by a face rub) finished dressing, paying ca
reful attention to every detail of his attire. After buttoning his vest he pulled on the jacket belonging to the seven-guinea, three-piece Cheviot wool suit, tailor-made five months before at Anderson & Sheppard of London. He tucked a white handkerchief in his top pocket, checked that his red-and-gray-striped tie was straight, glanced at the shine on his brown leather shoes, and began distributing among his pockets the objects laid out on the chest of drawers: a Parker Duofold pen, a tortoiseshell cigarette case (the initials on this one were his) stocked with twenty Turkish cigarettes, and a wallet containing two thousand French francs, a private membership carte de saison for the casino and another for the Sporting Club. His gold-plated Dunhill cigarette lighter was on the small breakfast table over by the window, on top of a newspaper whose main headline announced the latest news from the Spanish Civil War: “Franco’s Troops Attempt to Win Back Belchite.” Max slipped the lighter into his pocket, dropped the newspaper in the wastepaper basket, picked up his felt hat and Malacca cane, and went out into the corridor.
He saw the two men as he skipped down the last few steps of the magnificent staircase beneath the glass-domed foyer. They had their hats on and were sitting on one of the sofas on the right, next to the entrance to the bar. His first thought was that they were policemen. At thirty-five (it was seven years since he had stopped working as a ballroom dancer in luxury hotels and on transatlantic liners), Max possessed a well-developed professional instinct for detecting dangerous situations. A glance at the two men was enough to tell him this was one: when they saw him appear, they had exchanged a few words, and were now looking at him with visible interest. In order to avoid an awkward scene in the foyer (a possible arrest, although in Monaco he had a clean slate), Max walked toward them with a casual air, as if he was heading for the bar. The moment he drew level with them, the two men rose to their feet.
“Mr. Costa?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Mauro Barbaresco, and my friend here is Domenico Tignanello. Could we have a little chat?”
The one who had spoken (in fluent Spanish but with an Italian accent) had broad shoulders, a hooked nose, and bright eyes. He was wearing a gray, somewhat tight-fitting suit, the trousers sagging at the knees. His companion was small and thickset, a southerner, with a melancholy expression and a big mole on his left cheek; he wore a dark, pin-striped suit (crumpled, with shiny elbows, Max noticed), a tie that was too wide, and scuffed shoes. Both men must have been in their late thirties.
“I only have half an hour. Then I have an engagement.”
“That will be sufficient.”
The smile of the man with the hooked nose seemed too friendly to be reassuring (Max knew from experience that a friendly policeman was more dangerous than a hostile one). However, if those two were on the side of law and order, he concluded, it wasn’t in the traditional way. On the other hand, the fact that they knew his name wasn’t so remarkable. He was registered in Monte Carlo under the name of Máximo Costa, and his Venezuelan passport was valid and authentic. He also had a bank account containing four hundred and thirty thousand francs in a branch of Barclays, and another fifty thousand in the hotel safe, to guarantee that he was a respectable, or at any rate solvent client. And yet, he had a bad feeling about those two. His nose was trained to detect trouble, and he sniffed it now.
“Could we invite you for a drink?”
Max peered inside the hotel bar. Emilio, the waiter, was preparing a cocktail behind the counter, and various guests were sipping their drinks, ensconced in leather armchairs between walls adorned with etched glass and varnished wood panels. Max decided this wasn’t the ideal place to hold a conversation with the two men, and gestured toward the revolving door leading out into the street.
“Let’s go to the Café de Paris, opposite.”
They crossed the square in front of the casino, where the doorman, who had a good memory for tips, nodded at Max. The wind from the north had turned the nearby sea a deeper shade of blue, and the mountains along the coastline with their abrupt grays and ochers loomed more vividly in that extensive landscape of villas, hotels, and casinos that was the Riviera: a boulevard sixty kilometers long inhabited by nonchalant waiters waiting for diners, leisurely croupiers waiting for gamblers, fast women waiting for wealthy men, and smart hustlers, like Max, waiting for the chance to profit from it all.
“The weather is turning,” the man named Barbaresco said to his companion, looking at the sky.
For some reason that he didn’t pause to analyze, Max thought the man’s words sounded like a threat, or a warning. At any rate, they strengthened his conviction that trouble lay ahead. Trying to keep a cool head, he chose an outside table beneath the awnings, in a quiet corner of the terrace. On the left was the imposing façade of the casino, and on the far side of the square were the HÔtel de Paris and the Sporting Club. The three of them sat down, and the waiter came over. True patriots, Barbaresco and Tignanello ordered Cinzanos. Max ordered a Riviera cocktail.
“We have a proposition for you,” the man with the hooked nose said.
“When you say we, to whom are you referring?”
Barbaresco took off his hat and ran his hand over head. It was bald and tanned, and together with his broad shoulders gave him a healthy, athletic appearance.
“We are middlemen,” he replied.
“Acting for whom?”
A tired smile. Barbaresco stared at the red drink the waiter had put in front of him, but did not touch it. His glum friend had picked his up and was lifting it to his lips, gingerly, as though nervous of the lemon slice floating inside.
“All in good time,” replied Barbaresco.
“Very well,” said Max, poised to light a cigarette. “Let’s hear your proposition.”
“A job here in the South of France. Handsomely rewarded.”
Max lowered his lighter and stood up calmly, motioning to the waiter to bring the bill. He had enough experience of agitators, informers, and undercover policemen not to want to prolong the situation.
“It has been a pleasure, gentlemen. . . . As I told you earlier I have a prior engagement. Good day.”
The other two remained in their seats, unflustered. Barbaresco plucked an identity card out of his pocket, and showed it to Max.
“This is serious, Mr. Costa. Official business.”
Max looked at the card. It bore a photograph of its holder next to the acronym SIM.
“My friend has an identical one. Isn’t that right, Domenico?”
His companion nodded silently, as though instead of referring to his identity card Barbaresco had asked if he had tuberculosis. Tignanello had also removed his hat, revealing a shock of glossy black curls that accentuated his southern looks. Sicily or Calabria, Max surmised. With all the melancholy of his people stamped on his face.
“And are they authentic?”
“As authentic as the sacred host.”
“Be that as it may, your jurisdiction ends in Ventimiglia, am I right?”
“We’re just passing through.”
Max sat down again. Like all readers of newspapers, he knew about Italy’s territorial ambitions since Mussolini had seized power. They wanted to restore the old border in the South of France as far as the Var River. He was equally aware that with the atmosphere created by the Spanish Civil War, as well as the political tensions throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, that whole strip of coast was teeming with German and Italian spies. He also knew that SIM was short for Servizio Informazioni Militare, Italy’s foreign secret service.
“Before getting down to business, Mr. Costa, allow me to tell you that we know everything about you.”
“How much is everything?”
“I’ll let you be the judge of that.”
Following this preamble, Barbaresco drank his vermouth (three long sips resembling pauses) as he gave a remarkably accurate account, lasting approxi
mately two minutes, of Max’s career in Italy over the past two years. Besides other minor incidents, this included the theft of jewelry belonging to an American woman named Howells from her apartment on Via del Babuino in Rome; another theft, this time from a Belgian woman at the Grand Hotel, also in Rome; a safecracking at Villa Bolzano, owned by the Marquesa Greco de Andreis; and the theft of jewelry and money belonging to the Brazilian soprano Florinda Salgado from her suite at the Hotel Danieli in Venice.
“I did all that?” Max remarked calmly. “You cannot be serious.”
“Yes, I’m perfectly serious.”
“With all those crimes, all that evidence against me, it seems odd I was never arrested.”
“No one said anything about evidence, Mr. Costa.”
“Ah.”
“The truth is, none of the suspicions about you have ever been officially confirmed.”
Crossing his legs, Max finally lit his cigarette.
“You have no idea how relieved I am to hear it. . . . Now, tell me, what is it you want from me?”
Barbaresco turned his hat around in his hands. Like his companion’s, they looked meaty, with stubby nails. And dangerous, too, no doubt, if the need arose.
“There’s a bit of business,” he said. “A problem we need to solve.”
“Here in Monaco?”
“In Nice.”
“And where do I come in?”
“Despite your Venezuelan passport, you are of Argentinian and Spanish origin. You are well connected socially, and move easily in certain circles. In addition, you have never been in trouble with the French police, even less so than with our own. That gives you a respectable cover. . . . Isn’t that right, Domenico ?”
The other man nodded again with his usual apathy; he seemed accustomed to his colleague doing all the talking.
“And what do you expect me to do?”
“Employ your skills to our advantage.”
“I have many different skills.”
“What interests us”—Barbaresco looked again at the other man as though seeking his agreement, but Tignanello did not utter a word or make a gesture—“is your ability to infiltrate the lives of your victims, in particular wealthy women. On a few occasions, you have also shown an impressive ability to scale walls, break in through windows, and open safes. This last fact surprised us until we had a conversation with an old acquaintance of yours, Enrico Fossataro, who answered a few of our questions.”