CROSSING PARIS
555
In the direction of the Town Hall a few stars were appearing in a
narrow patch of sky with a silver border. It was to be feared that
in a few minutes the moon would come out, which would make their
job a more delicate one. In the moonlight, the shadowy places, cut
off by the brilliance of the moon's rays, seemed more impenetrable
than the black night had been, and offered more possibilities of
surprise. Crossing the open squares would be particularly dangerous.
On these moonlit spaces even an unobservant man will notice, in
spite of himself, the furtive silhouette of a pedestrian, as conspicuous
as a dancer in the circle of the spotlight.
They trudged along for five minutes in the alleys of the Saint
Gervais quarter, when Grandgil spoke, putting his valises on the
ground:
"Could we talk a minute?"
"I'm listening," said Martin, laying down his pack. "But make
haste. Stopping on all the street corners wasn't on our program."
"I wanted to ask you: how much can you get for pork, by the
kilo, in the black market?"
"Forget it."
"I don't know the price," pursued Grandgil, in that calm voice
in which Martin sometimes thought he detected a note of cold-blooded
teasing. "I
am
not informed, but I suppose it would be more than
a hundred and fifty francs."
"Forget it, I tell you."
"In the cafe where we were taken for cops, I feel sure that at
one hundred and fifty francs a kilogram we could easily sell
J
amblier's
pig. We would have at least fifteen thousand between us. Fifteen
thousand of easy money. The cafe isn't far from here. Instead of
walking till we drop. . . . "
Temptation touched Martin lightly for an instant, but already
it was hardly more than a regret. The resentment he felt toward the
ram would have sufficed to keep him from yielding.
"We've lost too much time already," insisted Grandgil. "Come
on."
"You seem pretty young to me," replied Martin. "Dressed like
you are, and your neck not even clean, you're simple to believe
you could pull off a big deal in meat. They'd spot a shabbily dressed
fathead like you as far as they could see him. Your pig, they wouldn't
