The Infant of Prague

“There was smuggling there for a while. That was a previous owner but the same family. They’re Dutch speakers, but because they’re in Brussels their help is all French speaking. The place is a front but it’s a public front, the kind you wink at.”

“What’s the kind you wink at?”

“The kind you wink at,” Lee Reuben said. “Like buying votes in Chicago or kicking back to the unions on construction in New York. There are laws against that kind of thing, but that’s the way it’s done. Brussels is a very strange city, Rita, plunk in the middle of an even stranger country. They don’t speak the same languages to each other, and they’re a joke to outsiders. For the love of God, the symbol of the city is the Manneken-Pis, a statue of a little boy taking a leak. How do you explain a city like that to anyone?”

“I just want to get a handle,” she said. “I’ve got to have some place to start.”

But Lee was going into his lecture mode. Rita knew him and she tolerated it. She had known Lee a long time ago in Green Bay. Lee had been in love with her then.

“Look, Brussels is The European City. Nothing comes close. Paris is old and tired, and besides, it’s full of Frogs. Berlin is broken, London is just money, Italy doesn’t count. People want to do business, they do it in Brussels. Common Market, NATO headquarters, it’s all here. Arms dealing, drugs, arrangements. There could have been all kinds of private contractors involved in something you are hinting at. And I wish you’d tell me more about it.”

“I can’t, Lee.”

“Rita Macklin, girl reporter for the Green Bay Press-Gazette, and Lee Reuben, boy reporter for the same sheet, and here we are, drinking on expense account in the Amigo bar in Brussels.”

“Lee, where do I find out?”

“What is this about really?”

“Not a story. It has nothing to do with that. If there was a story I could tell you, I would tell you. This is personal, Lee.”

“Personal,” he said. He looked at his drink. “Okay. It’s personal. You want to know about dangerous things.”

“Like the place you mentioned.”

“The Club Tres.” He had brought up the name from the first. The Club Tres was one of a half-dozen places where matters were arranged and where you met people who could do anything. Smuggle arms or smuggle people or give you a new identity or move a hundred kilos of heroin from Marseille to New York City. Brussels was at the center of a strange world because it belonged to no one — center of a country divided by language, crunched between France, Holland, and Germany, invaded first in two great wars, strangely sophisticated and provincial at the same time. Lee Reuben ladled in the history of the city he clearly loved.

“Who do you see there?” Rita Macklin said.

“A man named Philip Petty. Half-English, half-Belgian, he’s the manager. About twenty-eight years old and a flaming fag and an arranger of lives. Yes. I like that. An arranger of lives. You could tell him you needed to be put in touch with Monsieur so-and-so, the prominent arms dealer, and he would ask you your name and where you are staying and he would see what he could do. And maybe, in the next twenty-four hours, Monsieur so-and-so calls you up. You might be grateful enough to give Philip a thousand-franc tip the next time you saw him or not; he wouldn’t bring it up. If your deal with the arms dealer was profitable, Philip would be taken care of somehow, by someone.”

“I see.”

“No. Don’t see too much. If you make your inquiry of Monsieur Petty, make certain you don’t see too much. I told you, you want to know about dangerous people.” He signaled for another drink.

“Why do you know them?” Rita asked. Lee Reuben had been a thin, eager reporter when they first knew each other. Now he had a weariness to match his added weight. She thought he seemed very desperate.

“Because I know Brussels.” He picked up his new Scotch and drained some of it off. “Cheers,” he said.

“You drink a lot,” she said.

“Of course. I’m paid to drink a lot and listen to people and ask a few questions now and then. It gets to be a habit. Besides, I was never so far from home. Imagine missing Green Bay, Wisconsin.”

She thought she wanted to touch him and tell him it was all right to miss home. She did nothing.

“Cheers,” he said again and took another sip. He looked at her.

“It’s good to see you, Rita. It’s been years.”

“I knew you were here. I should have come up to see you,” she said. “I only came when I needed information.”

“That’s what I’m paid for,” he said. “I’m well informed.”

“You don’t sound very happy.”

“I’m terribly happy,” he said. “Unless I drink too much and let the self-pity get to me. You’re changed, Rita. I was terribly excited by you. You were so eager, such a radical, a bomb-thrower. But you aren’t anymore, are you?”

“I’m just older,” she said.

“You can’t go there alone,” he said. “Philip wouldn’t talk to you. It’s not a place for single women. Women get taken there. You need a man.”

“I see,” she said. She hoped he would not say anything.

“I could take you there,” he said.