“Suppose I tell the police who you really are?”

“And suppose I tell them exactly how you know that? Involving the cops is bad for us both, and you know it. My guess is that we’re both wanted men, in one half of Germany or the other. Frankly, you should be glad I don’t put a hole in you, which is what you deserve.”

“My dead body would be a little hard to explain.”

“People have disappeared from this hotel before. During the war the Resistance met here.”

“Oh. Well, it can’t have been very effective, that’s all I can say. I seem to recall this part of France was Nazi in all but name. Don’t you agree?”

“I think it’s time that you started answering the questions, not me.”

“I’ve got nothing to say that you don’t already know.”

“I don’t think so. When you squeeze a lemon, you flex your fist more than once.”

“Not this time.”

I picked up a pillow, folded it over the Sig, and pointed it at the heel of one of his handmade shoes.

“You’re not serious.”

“Let’s start with where you got the picture.”

“You know what these queers are like. Can’t trust any of them.”

“A name.”

“Louis Legrand.”

“Where did you buy it? Here in France? Where?”

“Here in France. In Nice.”

“When?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“Now tell me what else you have got on the old man, or I’ll put one through your heel. It won’t kill you, but you’ll never walk again without the aid of a stick.”

“Nothing. There’s nothing else, I promise. Just the neg and the prints in the envelope. Since you have my pistol you’ve obviously searched my room at the Grand and I daresay my car as well. You know I’m telling you the truth.”

“Stop wasting my time.” I kneed him in the back and sent him sprawling onto the carpet. “We both know it wouldn’t be in the least bit like you to bet everything on the one hand. That’s not how your kind of salesman works. You squeeze the lemon until there’s no juice in him and the pips have fallen out. So you’re going to tell me where you’ve stashed the rest of your samples, or I swear you’re only leaving this room in a wheelchair.”

I pressed the muzzle of the Sig against his Achilles to underline my meaning; I don’t know that I would actually have shot him, but he wasn’t to know that.

“All right, all right, I’ll tell you.”

I let him up onto his knees again, but he was slow to get started so I flicked his earlobe with the Sig a couple of times to encourage his soul—assuming he had one—to unburden itself.