When Maggie arrived at the safe house, every window was dark and shuttered. All the doors were locked. Great, she fumed, just perfect.
Worried about being out after curfew, she made her way across the arrondissement to Bar Lorraine, still carrying the suitcase. Jacques had specified the safehouse, but she had nowhere else to go and couldn’t stay out past curfew.
The bar was dim and smelled of herbal cigarette smoke. A man with an accordion finished playing “Flambée Montalbanaise” and began passing around his worn hat. The patrons in Thonet chairs at the marble-topped tables resolutely ignored him.
Two gray-haired men, one with a nervous blink, the other chewing on the end of an unlit pipe, played a silent but intense game of bezique at a table in the back. In a mirrored corner, Maggie saw a pretty French girl laughing and flirting over a tumbler of wine with a doughy-faced Wehrmacht officer, who leaned in to kiss her hand before he stood, bowed, and left.
The instant the German was out the door, a Frenchman with faded eyes and teeth stained by a lifetime of coffee and wine came up to the girl’s table and, to Maggie’s astonishment, slapped her across the face, hard. The girl’s eyes filled instantly with tears as the man hissed, “Flirting with the Boche? Someday we’ll shave your head and march you naked through the streets of Paris in your shame.”
The girl rose. Her pretty face was very pale. “Be careful I don’t get you arrested, old man!” she shrilled. Then she spat in his face and flounced off after the officer.
One of the gray-haired men called over, “Non, monsieur. Revenge is not the right way.” His companion nodded in agreement. “That’s not what we’re fighting for.”
Maggie made her way to the bar. “Puis-je voir Jeanne-Marie, la fille d’Ora?” she asked the man behind the counter, using the agreed-upon question. He was lean and broad-shouldered, with clipped brown hair. A shiny white scar ran down one cheek.
“Vous voulez dire Babs?” he replied, exactly as he should.
Maggie’s entire body sagged with relief. “Oui.”
“Come.” He took off his stained rondeau apron, then led her to the back hallway. There was a door; he knocked three times. Then he opened it for her, gesturing her inside.
She entered. Three Gestapo officers in long black leather coats stood facing her.
The man with the scar covered her mouth with his hand. “Don’t make a sound.”
Chapter Sixteen
Waiting in Obersturmbannführer Wolfgang von Waltz’s office at 84 Avenue Foch, Maggie found herself in the grip of a cold intensity, a sort of trance, her mind closed tight to thoughts of anything except meeting the immediate crisis.
She felt oddly composed, her senses heightened, seeing the room around her with increased clarity—colors brighter, light and shadows more defined. Her ears seemed to pick up all the sounds of the Sicherheitsdienst headquarters—the secretaries, the guards, even the nightingale warbling outside the window. A gray parrot hopped and fluttered around its cage. “Pretty Lady! Bonjour! Heil Hitler!” He swayed from one foot to the other. “Have you shot!”
When the German in the elegant suit entered, he eyed her closely, as though she were an objet d’art that he couldn’t quite evaluate without careful examination. “Mademoiselle Kelly,” he said in silky tones, pulling the cover over the birdcage. “Please sit down.”
Maggie did, taking a seat on one of the chairs with cabriole legs ending in gilded beast claws. He sat next to her.
“Permit me to introduce myself. I am Obersturmbannführer Wolfgang von Waltz. And I don’t believe there would be any point in making matters more difficult for yourself by denying anything. In fact, your best course of action at this point is to tell us everything.”
Maggie’s mind was working furiously. What did they know of her? How much information did the Obersturmbannführer have? To the best of her knowledge, they had picked her up only because the café tabac had been compromised and she had used the code words. What else did they know? Maybe nothing. Her fear steeled into resolve to play the mental game and win.
“Your clock is lovely, Obersturmbannführer,” she said, looking up at the Sleeping Beauty. “Louis Quatorze? Or Quinze?”
“You have a wonderful eye, mademoiselle.” The officer smiled indulgently. “I have looked over your passport and papers—all seem to be in order. And we do not want to be obliged to imprison a citizen of Ireland.” He crossed his legs. “Believe me, what we should like most of all is to be able to release you at once. If you’re a sensible woman—and your knowledge of décor suggests taste and breeding—you will simply tell us candidly why you were at the café, why you asked for Jeanne-Marie, daughter of Ora, and I assure you we shall then be able to let you go.”
Maggie maintained her icy calm. “Because I was looking for Jeanne-Marie, the daughter of Ora. I didn’t know it was a crime.” Deny everything, she reminded herself, remembering her training. Deny everything, even if they produce the most incontrovertible evidence.
“All right, Mademoiselle Kelly, tell me why you are in Paris.”
Maggie repeated her cover story, even describing at great length, and with colorful enthusiasm, the fashions she had seen at the House of Ricci.
Von Waltz was not impressed. “But, mademoiselle—why would you ask for Jeanne-Marie, the daughter of Ora, at the café?”
He sits next to me, and not at the desk—the obvious power position, Maggie thought. He’s trying to build a rapport, to use kindness to break me. She cast her eyes downward. “I’m ashamed,” she murmured girlishly.
He took a sharp breath. “No, mademoiselle, no need for shame. Just tell the truth.”
“The truth is—” Maggie’s fingers played with the folds of her skirt. “I’d heard there was someone at Bar Lorraine, someone named Jeanne-Marie, a woman who has access to—” Von Waltz had to lean forward to hear Maggie’s whisper. “—what some call…‘Paris snow.’?”
“Cocaine?” he asked in genuine amazement. “Cocaine?” Obviously, this was anything but the answer he was expecting. “And who the devil told you that?”
Maggie remembered what Chanel had told her about concierges: they could procure anything, truly anything, for their guests. “Someone at the Ritz—I don’t remember who,” she evaded, fluttering her hands. “One of the staff. And that’s all I was doing at the café this evening, I swear to you!”
“I don’t believe you.”
Maggie straightened. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said firmly, “but I refuse to answer any more questions at all until I have the advice of a lawyer, one appointed by the Irish Consulate, of course.”
“Alas, mademoiselle, your request for a lawyer cannot be granted. Even if the Irish Consulate should send a lawyer here, he could not be admitted to this building. This is the headquarters of the German Secret Police. No lawyers are permitted to interfere with our investigations.”
Von Waltz changed tactics, interrogating Maggie—Paige—on her private life. Never taking his eyes off her for an instant, he asked question after question on minute details of her existence. Maggie was thankful she’d known Paige for so long, and had lived in close quarters with her. She answered easily, even managing to sound bored. Just the way the real Paige would deal with an inept waiter.
Over two hours had passed by the time von Waltz rose from his chair. His friendly smile had vanished. He looked like a schoolmaster, but a bad-tempered one, furious his pupil had outsmarted him.
Despite her exhaustion, Maggie felt a small glow of pride. Still, she was quick to temper it. Be careful. Don’t let your guard down. He’s not done yet.
A rap sounded on the door. “Come in!” von Waltz snarled.
The Gestapo agent with the white scar who had brought Maggie in swung open the double doors and stood in the frame. “Obersturmbannführer, is our prisoner cooperating?” he asked in German. “Has she talked?”