where everyone knew him as a wealthy Argentine and an extremely eligible bachelor.
"Ah, Daniel, my love," crooned Marie-Helene du Chatelet, the hostess, as Eigen entered the crowded ballroom. The orchestra was playing a new song, which he recognized as "How High the Moon." Madame du Chatelet had spotted him from halfway across the room and had made her way over to him with the sort of exuberance she normally reserved for the very rich or the very powerful the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, say, or the German Military Governor of Paris. The hostess, a handsome woman in her early fifties, wearing a black Balenciaga gown that revealed the cleft of her ample bosom, was clearly besotted with her young guest.
Daniel Eigen kissed both her cheeks, and she drew him near for a moment, speaking in French in a low, confiding voice. "I'm so glad you could make it, my dear. I was afraid you might not show up."
"And miss a party at Hotel de Chatelet?" Eigen said. "Do you think I've taken leave of my senses?" From behind his back he produced a small box, wrapped in gilt paper. "For you, Madame. The last ounce in all of France."
The hostess beamed as she took the box, greedily tore off the paper, and pulled out the square crystal flask of Guerlain perfume. She gasped. "But... but Vol de Nuit can't be bought anywhere!"
"You're quite right," Eigen said with a smile. "It can't be bought."
"Daniel! You're too sweet, too thoughtful. How did you know it's my favorite?"
He shrugged modestly. "I have my own intelligence network."
Madame du Chatelet frowned, wagged a reproving finger. "And after all you did to procure the Dom Perignon for us. Really, you're too generous. Anyway, I'm delighted you're here handsome young men like you are as rare as hens' teeth these days, my love. You'll have to pardon some of my female guests if they swoon. Those you haven't already conquered, that is." She lowered her voice again. "Yvonne Printemps is here with Pierre Fresnay, but she seems to be on the prowl again, so watch out." She was referring to the famous musical-comedy star. "And Coco Chanel is with her new lover, that German fellow she lives with at the Ritz. She's on a tirade against the Jews again really, it's getting tedious."
Eigen accepted a flute of champagne from the silver tray borne by a servant. He glanced around the immense ballroom, with its floor of ancient parquet from a grand chateau, the walls of white and-gold paneling covered at regular intervals with Gobelin tapestries, the dramatic ceiling that had been painted by the same artist who later undertook the ceilings at Versailles.
But it was not the decor he was interested in so much as the guests. As he scanned the crowd he recognized quite a few people. There were the usual celebrities: the singer Edith Piaf, who made twenty thousand francs for each evening's performance; Maurice Chevalier; and all sorts of famous cinema stars who were now working for the German-owned film company Continental, run by Goebbels, making movies the Nazis approved of. The usual assortment of writers, painters, and musicians, who never missed one of these rare opportunities to eat and drink their fill. And the usual French and German bankers, and industrialists who did business with the Nazis and their puppet Vichy regime.
Finally, there were the Nazi officers, so prominent on the social circuit these days. All were in their dress uniforms; many affected monocles and had little mustaches like the Fuhrer himself. The German Military Governor, General Otto von Stiilpnagel. The German ambassador to France, Otto Abetz, and the young Frenchwoman he'd married. The Kommandant von Gross-Paris, the elderly General Ernst von Schaumburg, who, with his close-cropped hair and Prussian manner, was known as the Bronze Rock.
Eigen knew them all. He saw them regularly, at salons such as this, but more to the point, he'd done favors for most of them. The Nazi masters of France didn't just tolerate the so-called black market; they needed it like everyone else. How else could they get cold cream or face powder for their wives or lovers? Where else could they find a decent bottle of Armagnac? Even the new German rulers of France suffered from the wartime privations.
So a black-market dealer like Daniel Eigen was always in demand.
He felt a hand on his sleeve. Right away he recognized the diamond-encrusted fingers of a former lover, Agnes Vieillard. Al though he felt a spasm of