—3—
I didn’t have to make excuses to Ben on the third day of the chase; he just ambled away to begin his efforts toward making the demand for women meet the supply, and I joined Captain Winstead at a corner about two blocks away—as he suggested.
He was in civilian clothes and I was glad, because, after all, an enlisted man doesn’t feel entirely comfortable with an officer, regardless of how congenial the officer may try to be. He suggested that we try to find a little vulgar entertainment, and I suspected immediately that he meant go looking for women. But I was wrong: he meant that he wanted to show me some of the “show places.” “There’s a couple of more or less ribald dives we might visit, just to get away from what we are accustomed to,” he explained.
So I followed him and we came at last to a cellar café, dimly lit and apparently very popular with American soldiers and their women. We found a table, not too conspicuous, and ordered some sweet drinks, because I said I preferred grenadine to anything else. We didn’t talk much while these lasted, but spent our time looking over the crowd in the place. A gaudily clad woman, with one breast threatening any moment to pop out, was singing a French version of a popular American song and some half-drunk Americans were trying to sing with her. The place reeked with stale tobacco smoke and the smell of cheap perfume, but the grenadine tasted good.
“Let’s try a cognac citron now,” suggested my companion, when the grenadine had disappeared and the garçon stood again at our side.
So we had cognac citron and the Captain began to talk, in a low voice and with quick apprehensive glances here and there at our neighbors. “We’ve got to hurry matters a little,” he informed me. “To-morrow I will not go with you to the Madame’s. I will telephone her and beg off, but I’ll ask her if she would mind entertaining you while I am engaged elsewhere. She knows you are close to General Backett and she knows enough about him to know that he’s the kind of hard-working devil that would keep track of everything that’s going on—so I haven’t any doubt about her willingness to entertain you.”
“But she doesn’t seem to be very crazy about me,” I objected. “She likes you.”
“Oh—don’t let her mislead you. She’s nice to me because it’s part of her job—if she’s what I think she is. And as far as you’re concerned, just take it easy and let her entertain you. Just wait for the breaks. Play with her if she wants to play, stay with her if she wants you to stay, sleep with her, do anything at all that will give you an opportunity of seeing or hearing something.”
He offered me a cigarette and I accepted as I nodded understanding. This job didn’t appeal to me at all, but I couldn’t very well get out of it now. I mean, I hadn’t any excuse that I could give.
I accepted a light and he continued, “If you can, try to get an idea of where her money comes from. She has a bank account down town, but her deposits are very erratic and the checks she gets from the States very seldom tally with the amounts deposited. We have traced the checks to a harmless-looking lawyer in New York, but we haven’t questioned him because we don’t want to give away our hand. We figure that she gets funds from someone here in Paris also, and if we can discover who that party is, we’ll be on the track of real evidence.”