“What a moron, that Dieudonné!” cried Colonel Jumbo.
“Huh . . . I’m not so sure,” sighed Marshal Oufiri, gently shaking his large nappy head. “He may have something.”
“Shit—that’s all!” replied Jumbo, sitting down heavily on a pouf.
“Shit to you, flatfoot!”
The marshal’s tone was not mean.
“You too, George,” said Jumbo. “Say what you like. You’re nothing but a cop yourself.”
“I am a statesman.”
“Same thing.”
“No. The two work together, but they are not the same thing.”
“So tell me then which is the better.”
Jumbo smiled, exposing his filed-down teeth. The hatred of the hyena, thought the marshal in a poetic mood. The rain in Spain, the queen of Spain—there was a song like that with something obscene in it, some story about a penis. He smiled back at Jumbo.
“The statesman is better.”
Jumbo pouted in an odd way. He had not expected to be insulted so directly. What was up with the marshal tonight?