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الاستماع والقراءة

Robert L. Fish

To repay a wartime debt, a master smuggler ventures out into the open in this Edgar Award–nominated short story

The customs agent’s eyes go wide when he reads the passport. It is Kek Huuygens, the notorious smuggler who has grown rich making border guards look like fools. Today he is returning from Switzerland, a box of chocolates packed in his briefcase. The guard confiscates the chocolates, which he is certain must contain diamonds, but he lets Huuygens keep the wrapper as proof of his purchase. Huuygens resists the urge to smile, for the wrapper contains a priceless piece of sheet music, written in Bach’s own hand. He has beaten them once again.

He is toasting his triumph when a call comes through from Lisbon: an old friend from the war, when Huuygens waged guerilla warfare against the Nazis. The call leads to a peculiar reunion, and a chance for a coup that will remind every border agent in Europe why he curses the name Kek Huuygens.

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The Kek Huuygens Mysteries

The Hochmann Miniatures

A reckless bet in a New York club draws Kek Huuygens into a deadly game

As rain pummels Manhattan, two men play blackjack in one of New York’s most exclusive clubs. After an evening of comfortable low-stakes play, Kek Huuygens makes an outlandish bet: $10,000 on the next hand. He can afford it. The most accomplished smuggler in Europe, Huuygens never makes a bet unless he is sure to win. He is a lucky man, but his luck is about to be tested.

In the shadows, Victor Girard—a French gangster who gambles not just with money, but with people’s lives as well—watches him place the bet. Like his opponent, Girard prefers sure things. He knows Huuygens’ reputation, and offers him $50,000 to bring a certain priceless item through United States customs. Huuygens has made a career humiliating border agents, but he will find that Americans are not so easy to fleece—and that this is a wager that he cannot afford to lose.

The Wager

Kek Huuygens is hired to smuggle a suitcase that could change the destiny of Buenos Aires

André Martins remembers Kek Huuygens as he once was: wily, rugged, and desperate. But when he comes to pay his old friend a surprise visit, he finds Huuygens living in one of the most luxurious apartments in Paris. What’s more, Huuygens has a bottle of wine open on the table, for he was expecting his visitor before Martins ever had the idea to come. Kek Huuygens is a smuggler—the best in the world—and smugglers cannot afford to be surprised.

A mutual friend has made a most unusual score: stealing a suitcase full of the original Spanish deeds to Buenos Aires. In the right hands, they are worth a fortune, but first they must be returned to Spain—and only Huuygens can get them there. He will do it as he does everything: with wit, style, and a firm grip on the element of surprise.

The Tricks of the Trade

To keep his wife in furs, a smuggler sneaks a painting across the Spanish frontier

It is 1948, and few in Belgium live comfortably enough to haggle over payment—particularly those who make their living outside the law. Kek Huuygens is an exception. As far as his wife knows, this dapper gentleman is an art appraiser who moves in the finest circles. But although Kek knows all there is to know about art, he does not appraise it. He moves it—from one thief to another. Kek is the finest smuggler in Europe, and he charges accordingly. After all, his wife has expensive taste.

A miniature masterpiece by the Dutchman Frans Hals has gone missing from Sotheby’s. Kek has twenty-four hours to move it from Brussels to Madrid, avoiding all the police of Western Europe and a murderous thief who feels he has been double crossed. The job will make him a fortune—if he survives long enough to collect it.

Whirligig

When you need something stolen, smuggled, or made to disappear, Kek Huuygens is your man

In the aftermath of World War II, young couples stroll through Brussels, but they do not speak of love. Instead, they might talk about papers, passports, or relocation—and most of all, they speak of currency. As Europe rebuilds itself, fortunes are made and lost in hours, and money is worthless until it is converted into dollars.

When Kek Huuygens, a Polish-born smuggler lurking among the Brussels cocktail set, hears that a wealthy industrialist is desperate to convert $5 million of Belgian francs into American currency, he offers to help. For $1 million, he will liberate the man’s fortune. All the magnate has to do is let Kek steal it.

In these seven elegant short stories, Kek battles customs agents and police across Western Europe. For this dapper Pole, there is no object too large to smuggle—so long as the price is right.

The Kek Huuygens Mysteries

The Kek Huuygens Mysteries

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الاستماع والقراءة