Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 34, No. 13 & 14, Winter 1989

“Sit! Sit!” he commanded, and I did, first gazing all around with remembered pleasure. A fine place to work, of handsome proportions, dark paneled, shelved all around, smelling of leather and ancient paper and noble dust.

“Max, I envy you.”

He grinned at me. “Don’t be a damn fool. You’re fine?”

“I’m fine. You?”

He nodded, reached behind his chair, took from a shelf a crock of Holland gin and two ruby tumblers, and filled them. I took my glass and he took his. “Now,” he said, “tell me everything.”

What was he — friend? acquaintance? — I was never sure. In any category, good company. But, for all the surface sparkle, the wit and gratifying curiosity, Max runs deep, and I have never known what Max was thinking.

We talked through several refills: about my business, some gossip — what else can I call it? — about mutual friends. He described to me, in a tone of cordial condescension, some of the peculiar treasures that had lately come into his hands. Max says that I am illiterate, and by his standards that’s so. And then I remembered.

“Barbarossa and Company,” I said. “What’s that all about?”

“Ah! I have a partner. Wait, wait till you meet her. You will say I am the luckiest fellow in the world.”

Directly behind Max’s desk is a wall of the controlled-atmosphere room that serves as vault and workroom, where his earliest and most fragile wares are stored. Max swung around in his chair and directed a shout at the wall. “Anna!” And again, a good bellow, “Anna!” There was silence for a moment, then the door to the strongroom swung open and Max’s new partner stepped into the room.

She smiled at me. Yes, a beautiful woman. “Anneke. This is Peter Hessberg, whom I have not seen for two years. Anna Eykert.” She took a step forward and extended her hand to me, a good square hand. I grasped it.

Another tumbler appeared. Anna sat and we had gin all around. There was chitchat, and then Max said, “Peter has a most interesting profession.”

“Oh?”

“He is a gun runner.”

Anna’s eyes looked into mine. “Listen to him! Is that true?” Her voice was round and clear, with an undertone of amusement. The cadences were foreign.

“No.”

She shook her head. “I thought not. Max is a terrible liar. A terrible liar.” She looked at him fondly. A little unwarranted pang of jealousy pinched off my smile. Why was I jealous — what was Anna to me? Is there such a thing as jealousy at first sight?

Max was speaking. “Indeed a small world. Anna grew up in my own little village by the North Sea.”

“It is called Oostmahom,” said Anna. “Have you heard of it?”

“He has heard of it from me,” said Max. “Peter is the only man in America who has heard of Oostmahom.”

We talked on, of inconsequential things, while I stared at the woman from Oostmahom. She conformed to no conception of beauty that I consciously carried around with me, but she was beautiful just the same: a good body of the sturdy kind; a broad and well modeled face; long, heavy-lidded blue eyes under straight brows; and a marvelously shaped mouth. When she spoke, I couldn’t look away. Her hair was very fair, very thick, cut short — very Dutch. I told myself that she was stocky, square-jawed, and too old for me. My age, at least. And, of course, she belonged to Max, who said, “You’re looking thoughtful.”

I shrugged.

Anna asked me if I made my home in New York.

“Geneva.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Such an elderly city! Are you happy there? It is so cold. So grey! And the people — nobody speaks!”

“Money speaks,” said Max.

“Ah, that’s dreadful,” said Anna. “It is rude. Don’t pay any attention to him, Mr. Hessberg. He has no humor. No funniness. He lacks good qualities.”

“Peter sometimes deals in paintings,” said Max. She shot him a look — startled, I thought — which he did not return. “Tell Anna about your business. It is interesting.”

The units I purchase from the U.S. military I ship to Amsterdam to my friend Piet Bonta at P. Bonta Electrische, N.V., where they are tested, rebuilt, and shipped out to my clients — in most cases, the so-called third-world governments, who pay me a long time after with first-world money. All this I described, briefly, for Anna’s benefit, omitting the problems.

When I finished, she said, “I think Max is right. You are a gun runner. I see no difference. One of those terrible people who keep the world in a ferment.”

“You might not approve of my customers, but they’re legitimate governments, all of them. I don’t deal with terrorist organizations.”

Max raised his coppery eyebrows. “All governments are terrorist organizations.”

“Don’t be childish,” said Anna, laughing.

“It’s true,” said Max. “Someday you will agree with me. Now, Peter, tell Anna about the paintings.”