Read Online Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon - Free Book Online

and blond, his overcoat well cut.
    â€œDid you get the car?”
    â€œI’ll introduce you to the driver in a second. He’s waiting across the street.”
    It was a cheaper and noisier establishment, but you could still get pretty good drinks here. A man stood up. He was twenty-three or twenty-four, very thin, and in spite of his leather jacket he looked like a student.
    â€œThat’s him,” Kromer said, indicating Frank. Then he said, “Carl Adler. You can trust him. He’s all right.”
    They had a drink, because that’s what you did.
    â€œAnd the other guy?” Frank asked in a low voice.
    â€œAh! Yes. Will he have to …”
    Kromer hesitated. He hated to speak plainly and there were certain words it was better never to say, words that people had, out of superstition, erased from their vocabulary.
    â€œWill there be any … rough stuff?”
    â€œNot likely.”
    Kromer, who knew everybody, glanced around the café, found a certain face in the smoke, and disappeared onto the sidewalk, taking someone with him. When he came back, he was accompanied by a young fellow who looked working class. Frank didn’t catch his name.
    â€œWhat time do you think you’ll be through? He has to be back at his mother’s by ten o’clock. Later than that and the concierge won’t open the door, and his mother is sick and often needs him in the night.”
    Frank had almost decided to give the project up, not because of this second man, but because of the first, Adler, who hadn’t opened his mouth the whole time they were alone together. Frank wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn he’d seen him with the violinist from the second floor. Where, he couldn’t remember. Maybe it was only an impression. It was enough to bother him.
    â€œWhen do you want to meet?”
    â€œAs soon as possible.”
    â€œTomorrow? What time?”
    â€œEight o’clock in the evening. Here.”
    â€œNot here,” Adler interposed. “My car will be in the back street, opposite the fish market. All you’ll have to do is hop in.”
    When they were alone, Frank couldn’t help asking Kromer, “You’re sure they’re okay?”
    â€œHave I ever introduced you to anyone I wasn’t sure of?”
    â€œWhat does he do, this Adler?”
    A vague gesture. “Don’t worry about it.”
    It was odd. You suspected someone and trusted him at the same time. Perhaps it came from the fact that people had, more or less, a hold on one another, and everyone, if you looked hard enough, had something on his conscience. In short, if you hadn’t been betrayed, it was because the other fellow was afraid you’d betray him first.
    â€œAnd the little girl? Have you thought about it?”
    Frank didn’t answer. He didn’t tell him that on that very day, Wednesday—he had taken her to the movies on Tuesday— he had seen Sissy again. Not for very long. And not right after Holst had left. He had watched him from the window going toward the streetcar stop.
    He had waited until four o’clock. Finally, shrugging his shoulders, he had said to himself, We’ll see .
    He knocked on the door as though he was just passing by. On account of the old fool lying in ambush on the other side of the transom, he had no intention of going in. He simply said, “I’ll wait for you outside. Will you comedown?”
    He didn’t have to wait long. She came. She ran the last few yards over the sidewalk, glancing up automatically at the windows of the building, then, automatically too, slipping her hand through his arm.
    â€œMonsieur Wimmer didn’t speak to my father,” she announced right away.
    â€œI was sure he wouldn’t.”
    â€œI can’t stay out very long.”
    They never could stay on the second day.
    It was just beginning to grow dark. He drew her into the blind alley. She offered her lips