Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon Page A

reading a Zola paperback. Did his mother suspect anything? Ordinarily by noon she was urging him to wash up because there was only one bathroom and in the afternoon it was needed for the clients and the girls.
    Yet today she said nothing. She must have heard the racket that he had made in the night with Minna, and Minna looked tired and very worried. She spent her time either at the window, as though expecting to see the police, or with her eyes fixed on Frank, amazed that he was worried only about the cold he said he’d caught.
    As for him, he swallowed some aspirin, put drops in his nose, and stubbornly returned to his book.
    Sissy must be waiting for him. Several times, especially after Holst left, Frank had found himself looking at the alarm clock over the stove, but he hadn’t stirred. There had been a lot of coming and going in the apartment as usual, voices behind the doors, noises he knew so well. But he wasn’t curious enough to climb onto the table and look through the transom. Minna, completely naked, her hand on her belly, face haggard, had come to get a hot-water bottle but couldn’t attract his attention.
    He got dressed at last, once night had fallen. He went by the Holsts’ apartment. He could have sworn he saw the door move, that Sissy was there ready to open it, but he went calmly downstairs, smoking his cigarette, which tasted to him like menthol.
    Kromer didn’t arrive at Leonard’s until after seven. He tried to hide his excitement.
    â€œI’ve seen the general.”
    Frank remained stock-still.
    Kromer named a very large sum. “Half for you and half for me, and I’ll take care of the others.”
    Already Kromer was trying to treat him the way he used to, acting like an important man, very busy.
    â€œI want sixty percent,” Frank decided.
    â€œAll right.”
    Kromer figured that it really didn’t matter, since Frank wouldn’t see the general and wouldn’t know how much he really paid.
    â€œOn second thought, fifty percent as agreed. Only I want a green card.”
    Kromer didn’t have one. If Frank asked for one, it was because it was the hardest thing to get. It was extremely rare to see one. A man like Ressl might have one, but even then he wouldn’t flash it around. In the hierarchy, first came permits for automobiles, then the ones that authorized a person to be out at night, finally those that allowed the bearer to go into certain forbidden zones.
    The green card, with photograph and fingerprints, the signatures of the commandant of the armed forces and the chief of the political police, required all authorities to give the bearer free passage to “accomplish his mission without hindrance.”
    In other words, no one had the right to search you. At the sight of a green card, patrols stood at attention, apologized profusely, and were vaguely uneasy.
    And the astonishing thing about it was that it had never crossed Frank’s mind until his talk with Kromer. The idea came to him all of a sudden while they were discussing percentages, and he had started wondering what other exorbitant demands he could make.
    And even more astonishingly, Kromer, after a moment of stupefaction, didn’t burst out laughing or protest.
    â€œI can try.”
    â€œYour general can take it or leave it. If he wants his watches, he knows what to do.”
    He would have his card, he was certain.
    â€œThe little girl?”
    â€œNothing new. It’s all right.”
    â€œHave you touched her again?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWill you let me have her?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œShe’s not too thin, is she? Is she clean?”
    Frank was almost sure now that the story about the strangled girl in the barn was just make-believe. It was all the same to him. He despised Kromer. And it was amusing to think that a man like Kromer was going to pull every string to get him a green card that he would never dare to ask for