Kek Huuygens, Smuggler

The Wager

I suppose if I were watching television coverage of the return of a lunar mission and Kek Huuygens climbed out of the command module after splashdown, I shouldn’t be greatly surprised. I’d be even less surprised to see Kek hustled aboard the aircraft carrier and given a thorough search by a suspicious customs official. Kek, you see, is one of those men who turn up at very odd times in unexpected places. Also, he is rated by the customs services of nearly every nation in the world as the most talented smuggler alive. Polish by birth, Dutch by adopted name, the holder of a valid U.S. passport, multilingual, a born sleight-of-hand artist, Kek is an elusive target for the stolid bureaucrat who thinks in terms of hollow shoe heels and suitcases with false bottoms. Now and then over the years, Kek has allowed me to publish a little of his lore in my column. When I came across him last, however, he was doing something very ordinary in a commonplace setting. Under the critical eye of a waiter, he was nursing a beer at a table in that little sunken-garden affair in Rockefeller Center.

Before I got to his table, I tried to read the clues. Kek had a good tan and he looked healthy. But his suit had a shine that came from wear rather than from silk thread. A neat scissors trim didn’t quite conceal the fact that his cuffs were frayed. He was not wearing his usual boutonniere.

“I owe you three cognacs from last time — Vaduz, wasn’t it? — and I’m buying,” I said as I sat down.

“You are a man of honor,” he said and called to the waiter, naming a most expensive cognac. Then he gave me his wide friendly smile. “Yes, you have read the signs and they are true — but not for any reasons you might imagine. Sitting before you, you can observe the impoverishment that comes from total success. Failure can be managed, but success can be a most difficult thing to control...”

Hidden inside every Kek Huuygens aphorism there is a story somewhere. But if you want it produced, you must pretend complete indifference. “Ah, yes,” I said, “failure is something you know in your heart. Success is something that lies in the eye of the beholder. I think—”

“Do you want to hear the story or don’t you?” Kek said. “You can’t use it in your column, though, I warn you.”

“Perhaps in time?”

“Perhaps in time, all barbarous customs regulations will be repealed,” he said. “Perhaps the angels will come down to rule the earth. Until then, you and I alone will share this story.” That was Kek’s way of saying “Wait until things have cooled off.”

It all began in Las Vegas (Huuygens said) and was primarily caused by two unfortunate factors: one, that I spoke the word ‘banco’ aloud and, two, that it was heard. I am still not convinced that the player against me wasn’t the world’s best card manipulator, but at any rate, I found myself looking at a jack and a nine, while the best I could manage for myself was a six. So I watched my money disappear, got up politely to allow the next standee to take my place and started for the exit. I had enough money in the hotel safe to pay my bill and buy me a ticket back to New York — a simple precaution I recommend to all who never learn to keep quiet in a baccarat game — and a few dollars in my pocket, but my financial position was not one any sensible banker would have lent money against. I was sure something would turn up, as it usually did, and in this case it turned up even faster than usual, because I hadn’t even reached the door before I was stopped.

The man who put his hand on my arm did so in a completely friendly manner, and I recalled him as being one of the group standing around the table during the play. There was something faintly familiar about him, but even quite famous faces are disregarded at a baccarat table; one is not there to collect autographs. The man holding my arm was short, heavy, swarthy and of a type to cause instant distaste on the part of any discerning observer. What caught and held my attention was that he addressed me by name — and in French. “M’sieu Huuygens?” he said. To my absolute amazement, he pronounced it correctly. I acknowledged that I was, indeed, M’sieu Kek Huuygens. “I should like to talk with you a moment and to buy you a drink,” he said.

“I could use one,” I admitted, and I allowed him to lead me into the bar. As we went, I noticed two men who had been standing to one side studying their fingernails; they now moved with us and took up new positions to each side, still studying their nails. One would think that fingernails were a subject that could quickly bore, but apparently not to those two. As I sat down beside my chubby host, I looked at him once more, and suddenly recognition came.

He saw the light come on in the little circle over my head and smiled, showing a dazzling collection of white teeth, a tribute to the art of the dental laboratory.

“Yes,” he said, “I am Antoine Duvivier,” and waved over a waiter. We ordered and I returned my attention to him. Duvivier, as you must know — even newspapermen listen to the radio, I assume — was the president of the island of St. Michel in the Caribbean, or had been until his loyal subjects decided that presidents should be elected, after which he departed in the middle of the night, taking with him most of his country’s treasury. He could see the wheels turning in my head as I tried to see how I could use this information to my advantage, and I must say he waited politely enough while I was forced to give up on the problem. Then he said, “I have watched you play at baccarat.”

We received our drinks and I sipped, waiting for him to go on.

“You are quite a gambler, M’sieu Huuygens,” he said, “but, of course, you would have to be, in your line of work.” He saw my eyebrows go up and added quite coolly, “Yes, M’sieu Huuygens, I have had you investigated, and thoroughly. But please permit me to explain that it was not done from idle curiosity. I am interested in making you a proposition.”

I find, in situations like this, the less said the better, so I said nothing.

“Yes,” he went on, “I should like to offer you—” He paused, as if reconsidering his words, actually looking embarrassed, as if he were guilty of a gaffe. “Let me rephrase that,” he said and searched for a better approach. At last he found it. “What I meant was, I should like to make a wager with you, a wager I am sure should be most interesting to a gambler such as yourself.”

This time, of course, I had to answer, so I said, “Oh?”

“Yes,” he said, pleased at my instant understanding. “I should like to wager twenty thousand dollars of my money, against two dollars of yours, that you will not bring a certain object from the Caribbean through United States Customs and deliver it to me in New York City.”

I must admit I admire bluntness, even though the approach was not particularly unique. “The odds are reasonable,” I admitted. “One might even say generous. What type of object are we speaking of?”

He lowered his voice. “It is a carving,” he said “A Tien Tse Huwai, dating back to eight centuries before Christ. It is of ivory and is not particularly large; I imagine it could fit into your coat pocket, although, admittedly, it would be bulky. It depicts a village scene — but you, I understand, are an art connoisseur; you may have heard of it. In translation, its name is The Village Dance.” Normally, I can control my features, but my surprise must have shown, for Duvivier went on in the same soft voice. “Yes, I have it. The carving behind that glass case in the St. Michel National Gallery is a copy — a plastic casting, excellently done, but a copy. The original is at the home of a friend in Barbados. I could get it that far, but I was afraid to attempt bringing it the rest of the way; to have lost it would have been tragic. Since then, I have been looking for a man clever enough to get it into the States without being stopped by Customs.” He suddenly grinned, those white blocks of teeth almost blinding me. “I am offering ten-thousand-to-one odds that that clever man is not you.”

It was a cute ploy, but that was not what interested me at the moment.

“M’sieu,” I said simply, “permit me a question: I am familiar with the Tien Village Dance. I have never seen it, but it received quite a bit of publicity when your National Gallery purchased it, since it was felt — if you will pardon me — that the money could have been used better elsewhere. However, my surprise a moment ago was not that you have the carving; it was at your offer. The Tien, many years in the future, may, indeed, command a large price, but the figure your museum paid when you bought it was, as I recall, not much more than the twenty thousand dollars you are willing to — ah — wager to get it into this country. And that value could only be realized at a legitimate sale, which would be difficult, it seems to me, under the circumstances.”

Duvivier’s smile had been slowly disappearing as I spoke. Now he was looking at me in disappointment.

“You do not understand, m’sieu,” he said, and there was a genuine touch of sadness in his voice at my incogitancy. “To you, especially after your losses tonight, I am sure the sum of twenty thousand dollars seems a fortune, but, in all honesty, to me it is not. I am not interested in the monetary value of the carving; I have no intention of selling it. I simply wish to own it.” He looked at me with an expression I have seen many times before — the look of a fanatic, a zealot. A Collector, with a capital C. “You cannot possibly comprehend,” he repeated, shaking his head. “It is such an incredibly lovely thing...”

Well, of course, he was quite wrong about my understanding, or lack of it; I understood perfectly. For a moment, I almost found myself liking the man; but only for a moment. And a wager is a wager, and I had to admit I had never been offered such attractive odds before in my life. As for the means of getting the carving into the United States, especially from Barbados, I had a thought on that, too. I was examining my idea in greater detail when his voice broke in on me.

“Well?” he asked, a bit impatiently.

“You have just made yourself a bet,” I said. “But it will require a little time.”

“How much time?” Now that I was committed, the false friendliness was gone from both voice and visage; for all practical purposes, I was now merely an employee.

I thought a moment. “It’s hard to say. It depends,” I said at last. “Less than two months but probably more than one.”

He frowned. “Why so long?” I merely shrugged and reached for my glass. “All right,” he said grudgingly. “And how do you plan on getting it through Customs?” My response to this was to smile at him gently, so he gave up. “I shall give you a card to my friend in Barbados, which will release the carving into your care. After that” — he smiled again, but this time it was a bit wolfish for my liking — “our wager will be in effect. We will meet at my apartment in New York.”

He gave me his address, together with his telephone number, and then handed me a second card with a scrawl on it to a name in Barbados, and that was that. We drank up, shook hands and I left the bar, pleased to be working again and equally pleased to be quitted of Duvivier, if only for a while.

Huuygens paused and looked at me with his satanic eyebrows tilted sharply. I recognized the expression and made a circular gesture over our glasses, which was instantly interpreted by our waiter. Kek waited until we were served, thanked me gravely and drank. I settled back to listen, sipping. When next Huuygens spoke, however, I thought at first he was changing the subject, but I soon learned this was not the case.

Anyone who says the day of travel by ship has passed (Huuygens went on) has never made an examination of the brochures for Caribbean cruises that fill and overflow the racks of travel agencies. It appears that between sailings from New York and sailings from Port Everglades — not to mention Miami, Baltimore, Norfolk and others — almost everything afloat must be pressed into service to transport those Americans with credit cards and a little free time to the balmy breezes and shimmering sands of the islands. They have trips for all seasons, as well as for every taste and pocketbook. There are bridge cruises to St. Lucia, canasta cruises to Trinidad, golf cruises to St. Croix. There are seven-day cruises to the Bahamas, eight-day cruises to Jamaica, 13-day cruises to Martinique; there are even — I was not surprised to see — three-day cruises to nowhere. And it struck me that even though it was approaching summer, a cruise would be an ideal way to travel; it had been one of my principal reasons for requiring so much time to consummate the deal.

So I went to the travel agency in the hotel lobby and was instantly inundated with schedules and pamphlets. I managed to get the reams of propaganda to my room without a bellboy, sat down on the bed and carefully made my selection. When I had my trip laid out to my satisfaction, I descended once again to the hotel lobby and presented my program to the travel agent there. He must have thought I was insane, but I explained I suffered from Widget Syndrome and required a lot of salt air, after which he shrugged and picked up the phone to confirm my reservations through New York. They readily accepted my credit card for the bill — which I sincerely hoped to be able to honor by the time it was presented — and two days later, I found myself in Miami, boarding the M. V. Andropolis for a joyous 16-day cruise. It was longer than I might have chosen, but it was the only one that fit my schedule and I felt that I had — or would, shortly — earn the rest.

I might as well tell you right now that it was a delightful trip. I should have preferred to have taken along my own feminine companionship, but my finances would not permit it; there are, after all, such hard-cash outlays as bar bills and tips. However, there was no lack of unattached women aboard, some even presentable, and the days — as they say — fairly flew. We had the required rum punch in Ocho Rios, fought off the beggars in Port-au-Prince, visited Bluebeard’s Castle in Charlotte Amalie and eventually made it to Barbados.

Barbados is a lovely island, with narrow winding roads that skirt the ocean and cross between the Caribbean and Atlantic shores through high stands of sugar cane that quite efficiently hide any view of approaching traffic; but my rented car and I managed to get to the address I had been given without brushing death more than three or four times. The man to whom I presented the ex-president’s card was not in the least perturbed to be giving up the carving; if anything, he seemed relieved to be rid of its responsibility. It was neatly packaged in straw, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, and I left it exactly that way as I drove back to the dock through the friendly islanders, all of whom demonstrated their happy, carefree insouciance by walking in the middle of the road.

There was no problem about carrying the package aboard. Other passengers from the M. V. Andropolis were forming a constant line, like ants, to and from the ship, leaving empty-handed to return burdened with Wedgwood, Hummel figures, camera lenses and weirdly woven straw hats that did not fit. I gave up my boarding pass at the gangplank, climbed to my proper deck and locked myself in my stateroom, interested in seeing this carving upon which M’sieu Antoine Duvivier was willing to wager the princely sum of 20,000 United States dollars.

The paper came away easily enough. I eased the delicate carving from its bed of straw and took it to the light of my desk lamp. At first I was so interested in studying the piece for its authenticity that the true beauty of the carving didn’t strike me; but when I finally came to concede that I was, indeed, holding a genuine Tien Tse Huwai in my hands and got down to looking at the piece itself, I had to admit that M’sieu Duvivier, whatever his other failings, was a man of excellent taste. I relished the delicate nuances with which Tien had managed his intricate subject, the warmth he had been able to impart to his cold medium, the humor he had been genius enough to instill in the ivory scene. Each figure in the relaxed yet ritualistic village dance had his own posture, and although there were easily 40 or 50 men and women involved, carved with infinite detail on a plaque no larger than six by eight inches and possibly three inches in thickness, there was no sense of crowding. One could allow himself to be drawn into the carving, to almost imagine movement or hear the flutes. I enjoyed the study of the masterpiece for another few minutes and then carefully rewrapped it and tucked it into the air-conditioning duct of my stateroom, pleased that the first portion of my assignment had been completed with such ease. I replaced the grillwork and went upstairs to the bar, prepared to enjoy the remaining three or four days of balmy breezes — if not shimmering sands, since Barbados had been our final port.

The trip back to Miami was enjoyable but uneventful. I lost in the shuffleboard tournament, largely due to a nearsighted partner, but in compensation I picked up a record number of spoons from the bottom of the swimming pool and received in reward, at the captain’s party, a crystal ashtray engraved with a design of Triton either coming up or going down for the third time. What I am trying to say is that, all in all, I enjoyed myself completely and the trip was almost compensation for the thorough — and humiliating — search I had to suffer when I finally went through Customs in Miami. As usual, they did everything but disintegrate my luggage, and they handled my person in a manner I normally accept only from young ladies. But at last I was free of Customs — to their obvious chagrin — and I found myself in the street in one piece. So I took myself and my luggage to a hotel for the night.

And the next morning I reboarded the M. V. Andropolis for its next trip — in the same cabin — a restful three-day cruise to nowhere...

Huuygens smiled at me gently. My expression must have caused the waiter concern — he probably thought I had left my wallet at home — for he hurried over. To save myself embarrassment, I ordered another round and then went back to staring at Huuygens.

I see (Kek went on, his eyes twinkling) that intelligence has finally forced its presence upon you. I should have thought it was rather obvious. These Caribbean cruise ships vary their schedules, mixing trips to the islands with these short cruises to nowhere, where they merely wander aimlessly upon the sea and eventually find their way back — some say with considerable luck — to their home port. Since they touch no foreign shore, and since even the ships’ shops are closed during these cruises, one is not faced with the delay or embarrassment of facing a customs agent upon one’s return. Therefore, if one were to take a cruise preceding a cruise to nowhere and were to be so careless as to inadvertently leave a small object — in the air-conditioning duct of his stateroom, for example — during the turn-around, he could easily retrieve it on the second cruise and walk off the ship with it in his pocket, with no fear of discovery.

Which, of course, is what I did...

The flight to New York was slightly anticlimactic, and I called M’sieu Duvivier as soon as I landed at Kennedy. He was most pleasantly surprised, since less than a month had actually elapsed, and said he would expect me as fast as I could get there by cab.

The ex-president of St. Michel lived in a lovely apartment on Central Park South, and as I rode up in the elevator, I thought of how pleasant it must be to have endless amounts of money at one’s disposal; but before I had a chance to dwell on that thought too much, we had arrived and I found myself pushing what I still think was a lapis-lazuli doorbell set in a solid-gold frame. It made one want to weep. At any rate, Duvivier himself answered the door, as anxious as any man I have ever seen. He didn’t even wait to ask me in or inquire as to my taste in aperitifs.

“You have it?” he asked, staring at my coat pocket.

“Before we go any further,” I said, “I should like you to repeat the exact terms of our wager. The exact terms, if you please.”

He looked at me in irritation, as if I were being needlessly obstructive.

“All right,” he said shortly. “I wagered you twenty thousand dollars of my money against two dollars of yours that you would not bring me a small carving from Barbados through United States Customs and deliver it to me in New York. Is that correct?”

I sighed. “Perfectly correct,” I said and reached into my pocket. “You are a lucky man. You won.” And I handed him his two dollars...

I stared across the table at Huuygens. I’m afraid my jaw had gone slack. He shook his head at me, a bit sad at my lack of comprehension.

“You can’t possibly understand,” he said, almost petulantly. “It is so incredibly lovely...