Anthony had been counting on his cousin to help him out. That was a mistake.
He tried to call him all day Sunday, even stopped by his house, without success. On Monday, same thing. He was nowhere to be found.
As Anthony thought about it, this was nothing new. His cousin wasn’t very reliable. But he was running out of time and he knew he couldn’t manage the situation by himself. Every time he went into the garage he looked at the empty space under the tarp and stood there, wondering whether he should run away or shoot himself.
Fortunately, his mother had come across an old box of Xanax, which she took before going to bed. She would be in a stupor until noon the next day. At breakfast on Sunday morning, she stood in front of an open cupboard for five minutes, unable to decide whether she wanted bread or crackers. And on Monday she went off to work without her glasses, and even without her high heels. Patrick had noticed her semi-comatose state, but he had long since settled the issue of Hélène’s moods: she was complicated.
The cousin finally surfaced on Tuesday. Anthony found him in the bathroom at his place, bare-chested and in his underwear. He had just stepped out of the shower and was putting gel on his hair.
“Where were you? I’ve been looking for you for three days.”
“I was busy.”
Anthony couldn’t believe it. How could you possibly not give a fuck to that degree? His cousin calmly went about getting dressed. He brushed his teeth, put on a T-shirt. Finally they went upstairs. The bedroom seemed unusually neat. His cousin put on some music, as usual. It wasn’t noon yet, too soon to smoke anything. Anthony didn’t trust himself to sit down, so he waited, hands in his pockets.
“Stop acting pissy,” said his cousin. “Sit down.”
“I’m in such deep shit, I don’t know what to do.”
His cousin stood at the open window, clipping his nails. Birds were singing, very close by. The weather guy had announced record heat, but a little breeze stirred the curtains, and the temperature was still quite bearable. Anthony collapsed onto the bed and stared at the ceiling.
“Your bike’s never going to turn up,” said his cousin after a moment.
“What do you mean?”
“By now, it’s long gone.”
“Gone where?”
With an elliptical wave, his cousin suggested distant countries. There were routes that went through Marseille to Algeria and even beyond. He had seen that on a Le Droit de savoir broadcast. Guys could dismantle your Peugeot in nothing flat, and the spare parts would show up as far away as Bamako. Anthony was willing to believe that was true, but it had nothing to do with his father’s Yamaha.
“So what do you want to do about it?”
“I don’t know. We’ll just have to go see Le Grand.”
His cousin blew the little pile of nail parings off the windowsill then turned to face Anthony. He hadn’t looked him in the eye once since he’d come over.
“It won’t do any good. You just have to tell your old man, that’s all.”
For Anthony, that was unimaginable.
Once, when his father was passing a truck on the highway, he was honked at by a big black German sedan coming up behind him. The guy must’ve been doing 125 miles per hour and had flashed his headlights from very far away to get Patrick to pull over. Hélène and the boy had turned around to see. It was a prodigious, purring black car, sleek as an artillery shell. Probably a Mercedes; Anthony couldn’t remember. But instead of pulling over, his father had eased up on the gas so as to stay even with the truck. Not a muscle in his face moved. He kept it up for at least five minutes, which is a long time in a Lancia with a V-6 sitting on your ass.
“Patrick, stop it,” his mother had said.
“Shut up.”
The tension in the car got so high, they had to crack the windows to defog them. The episode ruined the start of their vacation. On the way home, the family took an alternate route.
Anthony now started nagging his cousin, insisting that it was their only chance. At last, he finally gave in. They would go see Le Grand.
Around two that afternoon the boys found themselves in front of L’Usine. The wind had died and the valley was as hot as a frying pan. The air seemed thick, the asphalt like glue. Everything felt sticky. Just before they got to the bar, the cousin laid down the law.
“I’m letting you know now: we’re gonna be in and out, fast. I don’t want to spend all day there.”
“Okay.”
“We go into the bar, then we leave.”
“Agreed.”
“And I do the talking.”
L’Usine stood right across from H4, the blast furnace that had survived the longest. It was on a very straight two-way street leading to the cemetery. The cousin went in first. Inside, the temperature was around ninety-five degrees, and the guys at the bar seem to have melted into the decor. There were five of them. Anthony knew all their first names. The door closed behind them, as if snuffing out a candle.
“Morning, young men,” said Cathy, the owner.
The boys returned her greeting as their eyes adjusted to the darkness. With a soporific whirring, three fans stirred the air. The drunks were perched on stools drinking beer, except for Rudi, who preferred the faux-leather banquette in the back—an odd choice, considering he was wearing shorts.
The boys walked over to the bar, feeling a bit intimidated. Heavy-lidded eyes turned toward them. Someone sniffed. Others tried to wave, to be polite. The overall ambience was that of a wax museum.
“So what’s new?” Cathy asked.
“Nothing special.”
The cousin put his elbow on the bar and leaned over to give her a kiss. Anthony was a step behind him. He felt ill at ease, and eventually realized that Rudi was staring at him from his banquette. The man was breathing fast, his mouth half open, looking dazed, as usual. A cowlick rising from his skull accentuated his look of dullness. On this day Rudi was wearing a brand-new magnetic blue Castorama T-shirt.
“It’s hot!” he suddenly shouted.
“Hey!” said Cathy sharply.
Startled, Rudi took a sip of his beer. He was now staring off into space, still panting. It was said he’d had meningitis when he was little.
“Pay no attention to him,” she advised.
Turning to Anthony, she asked him if he was being standoffish. No, no, the boy answered, before coming over to kiss her in turn.
“And how’s your father? We don’t see him around anymore.”
“He’s pretty busy.”
“Say hello to him for me.”
“Sure.”
“Tell him we’d enjoy seeing him again.”
Considering the unpaid tab Patrick had left behind, that wasn’t likely to happen.
“All right, gents, what can I serve you?”
“We just came to see Le Grand. Is he here?”
“Manu? He’s probably in back shooting pool.”
She shouted “Manu!” With her accent, it sounded like “Manoo!” Cathy was from Schiltigheim originally. The customers didn’t react. They just took another sip of beer and returned to their economical, sluggish thoughts.
After a second shout, Le Grand finally appeared, holding a pool cue.
“You’ve got visitors,” said the owner.
But Manu had already spotted the boys and hurried forward to shake hands.
“Hey, what do you know?” he said, revealing a row of shiny-white teeth, all fake. “So it’s you!”
“Yeah,” said the cousin.
“I thought you were dead. What’re you up to these days?”
“Nothing special. It’s vacation time, that’s all.”
“Oh, really?”
After trading a few more barbed remarks with hidden undertones, Le Grand ordered three beers. He and the cousin had done a lot of dealing for a while, but things had gradually gotten strained. The cousin, especially, began to keep his distance, because Manu was bizarre. He was dangerous and possessive, and almost always high on coke. You sensed they’d had a series of complicated interactions. When Manu was done teasing him, he turned to Anthony and asked about his father.
“He’s okay. Taking it easy.”
“Has he found work?”
“He went into business.”
“What kind of business?”
“He’s a landscape gardener now.”
Manu was glad to hear the news. Cathy set three opened Kronenbourgs on the counter. Drops glinted on the cans, as if they were in full sunshine. Anthony could feel his mouth watering. Le Grand paid and passed the beers around. They drank to Patrick’s success. The chill of the beer went right through them. It was alive, fresh; you’d think it was springtime.
“Nothing better,” said Manu.
His can was almost empty already.
“We wanted to talk to you,” said the cousin.
“Oh, really?”
Le Grand started to chuckle in that funny way he had. You would’ve thought he was yelping, with his perfect teeth in his sweaty face.
“Can we step outside?” asked the cousin.
“We’re fine right here.”
Manu had long ago made L’Usine his home base. He lived nearby and spent his life here, playing pool and throwing darts, sitting on his ass, drinking and hanging out with friends. He felt so at home that he’d offered to help Cathy fix up the place. She turned him down, even though the joint had been stewing in its juices for nearly a decade without fresh paint or air-conditioning, or even much housekeeping.
The place was historic. The regulars called it L’Usine; other people stayed away. People drank in silence until five o’clock, and more energetically afterward. Depending on their temperament, they then got sick, funny, or mean. Cathy ran her world with a firm hand. The cops didn’t bother coming by, because she knew how to deal with drunks. From time to time when she was in the mood, she would put on a CD of Joe Dassin songs, and you could glimpse, under her layers of makeup, the young girl she’d once been.
“I’d still rather we stepped outside,” insisted the cousin.
“Oh, all right.”
They finished their beers before leaving.
“See you later,” said Manu.
Rudi, who hadn’t missed anything of the scene, grew suddenly agitated, tugging at his collar and waving his hands.
“Where you going?”
As before, he spoke too loudly, and Cathy suggested he calm down, otherwise he would have to do his drinking somewhere else.
“Nowhere,” answered Manu. “We’ll be right back.”
“Can I come?” asked Rudi worriedly.
“Don’t budge. We’ll be back, like I said.”
“Wait…”
Rudi had begun extracting himself from the banquette, which was no easy task.
“I told you to stay put,” said Le Grand. “I’ll be back, there’s no reason to panic.”
The regulars enjoyed the spectacle, but without hoping for much from it. Manu was standing near the door. He did look sort of odd, with his tight jeans and his Doc Martens. His tattered Jack Daniel’s T-shirt was darker at the armpits. But what was most unusual was his soccer player haircut: long on the back of his neck, and almost nothing at the temples. It would be hard to guess his age.
Cathy promised to keep an eye on Rudi, who had settled down.
Outside, Manu and the boys were dazzled by the sunlight. Le Grand squinted so hard, you couldn’t see his eyes.
“So what’s this little secret of yours?”
The cousin was about to blurt it out, but Le Grand raised his hand.
“You hear that?”
The empty street in front of them was lined with unremarkable brick houses. The few windows were whitewashed. On the other side, the echoing carcass of the blast furnace rose in the shimmering heat. All around it lay a rusty jungle, a tangle of piping, bricks, bolting, and steel mesh, a mass of stairs and railings, pipes and ladders, empty warehouses and sheds.
“Hear that?” Le Grand repeated.
In the distance, you could hear a clatter of dings and clangs.
“What is it?”
“Kids playing with slingshots. Completely out of their minds. They shoot ball bearings at each other. The place is a real sieve. It’ll all come crashing down one of these days.”
“Can’t anybody stop them?” asked the cousin.
“Why bother?”
For a century, the Heillange blast furnaces had sucked all the life out of the region, gulping down people, time, and raw materials all at once. On one side, carts on tracks trundled in fuel and mineral ores. On the other, metal ingots left by train before taking rivers and streams to slowly make their way across Europe.
Located at the crossroads, the mill’s insatiable body had lasted as long as it could, fed by roads and exhaustion, nourished by a whole network of channels, which, once everything was deposited and sold by weight, had cruelly bled parts of the town dry. Those ghostly absences stirred memories, as did the overgrown train tracks, fading billboards, and bullet-riddled street signs.
Anthony knew this history well. He’d been told it his whole childhood. From the firebox stoking hatch, ore turned to cast iron at three thousand degrees, in a burst of heat whose tenders were either proud or dead. The mill had hissed, moaned, and roared for six generations, even at night. Since interrupting it would cost a fortune, it was better to tear men from their beds and their wives. And in the end, all that was left were reddish shapes behind a fence with a small padlock. Someone held an art opening there last year. A legislative candidate suggested turning it into a theme park. Now kids were destroying it with slingshots.
“The fire department came the other day,” said Le Grand. “They found a kid who was half dead. He’d been hit in the temple.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“So what happened?”
“I don’t know, I don’t read the paper.”
“Who was it?”
“One of those weird kids from Hennicourt. Seems he was bleeding like a stuck pig when they found him.”
“You can’t kill those people. He probably pulled through.”
The sarcasm, which was usual when talking about the inbreds, didn’t get a laugh out of Manu. His father had worked at Metalor from middle school until his accident. His uncles had spent their lives in there as well. His grandfather, too. It was the same with the Casatis and half the people in the valley.
“All right, guys,” Manu continued in his monotone. “What is it you want?”
“It’s about the Boualis.”
“So?”
“You know them, right? You’re tight with everybody.”
“I don’t know anything. I never see those people. What’s this problem of yours?”
In a few words, the cousin explained. The party and Hacine showing up. The motorcycle disappearing. Their suspicions. When he heard about the bike, Le Grand whistled admiringly.
“Man, when your dad hears about this…”
“You sure you can’t talk to them?”
“To say what? You don’t even know if it was them.”
Put that way, the whole approach looked completely ridiculous, of course. The cousin went on chatting, for appearances’ sake, and then the conversation dried up. The low ping of ball bearings ricocheting in the mill resumed. Shading his eyes, Le Grand tried to see inside, then gave up.
“C’mon, I’ll get you a drink. It’ll be something, anyway.”
The boys thought he was going to treat them to another beer at L’Usine, but instead of that, he invited them to his place. He lived just down the street toward the cemetery. The boys didn’t dare refuse.
On the way, Anthony thought about the half-crazy kids who were shooting up the steel mill. They lived in tiny settlements strung along empty departmental highways with run-down farms, abandoned post offices, and walls bearing Monsavon advertising posters. No one knew why, but all the people living there looked more or less the same, with oversized heads shaved bald as cue balls, and ears that stuck out. You hardly ever saw them in winter, but when spring came they drove into town in their patched-up cars. When you encountered them downtown, they hugged the walls, but in their element, they weren’t so constrained. People said they ate dogs and hedgehogs. Anthony had been in elementary school with a few of them: Jérémy Huguenot, Lucie Kreper, and Fred Carton. They weren’t especially mean, but they were already tough and proud, quick to throw a punch. You didn’t see them after fifth grade. They probably clustered in vocational schools until they were of age. After that, they lived marginal lives on welfare and petty theft, incestuous families that got into fights and once in a while produced a force of nature that scared the hell out of the whole canton.
Manu’s apartment was up under the roof, and it was even hotter than in the bar.
“Have a seat,” he said, pointing to the sofa bed.
He threw the windows open. The boys were already drenched with sweat.
A little dog was asleep in a basket on the floor, panting. The exposed beams bore paperback books and pieces of decorative African art; a dreamcatcher hung in a corner. Aside from that, there wasn’t much, a big orange armchair and a Subway poster on the wall. A thumbtack had popped out, and the poster’s upper-right corner curled down.
Manu emerged from the open kitchen with a six-pack of beer he’d bought at Aldi. It was Labatt 50—cheap stuff—but it came straight from the fridge. He took one, left the others on the coffee table, and dropped into his armchair.
“Drink up while it’s still cold,” he said.
The boys did so. The beer was icy, a treat.
After setting his beer down, Manu swung his chair around so he could scratch the head of the little dog, which was still sleeping in its basket. It was a small black and tan mutt with a pointed muzzle. The dog sighed at being stroked, and Manu poured some beer into its bowl.
“Want a little drink?”
He moved the bowl closer to the dog, which opened a dubious eye before lapping it up. Then it lowered its head back in the basket.
“Poor animal. In this heat, he sleeps all day long.”
After that, he switched on the hi-fi. A guy started singing “Je peux très bien me passer de toi.” It was a good song, and Manu turned the volume up a little.
“You’ve got a nice place,” said the cousin. “I didn’t know you did any traveling.”
“Are you kidding? Three-quarters of the stuff here comes from the Saint-Ouen flea market. Back in the day I used to go there all the time. Guys were always giving me crapola like that.”
He took a long pull on his beer and set the can down, carefully putting it on the ring it had left on the coffee table.
“Anyway, I’m comfortable here. I have a room for my daughter. It’s not too far from downtown. I’m easy. Except for the summer; that’s a killer.”
The cousins were in agony sitting on the sofa bed, which was as hard as wood. Le Grand sipped his beer and watched them, clearly pleased to see how uncomfortable they were.
“You guys okay?”
“Yeah.”
Suddenly serious, he leaned toward them and said:
“You know, the Bouali family, I mainly knew the cousins when I was working at L’Escale. Saïd and I were in the joint at the same time. But I’d be amazed if I talked to him twice in my life. And as for the kids, zip. I keep my head down now.”
As he talked, Manu rummaged under the coffee table. There was all sorts of junk down there: movie tapes, magazines, food wrappers, a baby bottle with curdled milk. The cousins exchanged a glance. They were starting to regret having come.
“Aha, here it is.”
Manu had found what he was looking for, a little metal patch kit. Opening it, he shook two grams of cocaine out onto the coffee table. It was lumpy and slightly pink. Anthony had never seen coke before, and his mouth immediately went dry. Manu was now busy making three neat symmetrical lines, using a playing card, an eight of diamonds.
“Hey, Manu, we aren’t doing any coke,” ventured the cousin. “It’s totally cool, but we’re gonna head home now.”
The dog opened its jaws and yawned. Seeing what its master was doing, it hopped up and gaily shook itself. Anthony felt a stab of dismay. The little dog had only three legs; the fourth was just a blackened stump. He watched as it hopped over to its master. Manu wet his finger, took a little coke, and offered it to the dog, which barked and happily licked it. Manu chuckled, showing him off to the cousins.
“He’s funny, isn’t he?”
“Yeah,” said Anthony.
“But seriously, Manu,” the cousin tried again, “we’re going to split. There’s this thing I gotta do.”
“You’re gonna have a taste first. Even the dog does it.”
Le Grand rolled a Post-it note and inhaled a line of coke all at once. It must have been four inches long.
“Okay, your turn.”
He handed the Post-it to Anthony, who was literally dripping with sweat.
“Wait,” said the cousin, “we—”
“Don’t give me a hard time.”
Meanwhile, the dog was growling and spinning around in its basket at top speed, trying to catch its tail.
“What a little wretch,” said Manu, laughing.
The dog was spinning, hopped up and determined. The boys could hardly believe their eyes.
“Okay, calm down now,” said Le Grand.
“Hey!” He slapped the little dog on the rump, and it groaned and lay down.
“It’s the same old routine, every time. He wants a taste, and then he gets half crazy.”
Manu turned back to his guests, sniffed a couple of times, and smiled, displaying his synthetic teeth again. Anthony realized that his face reminded him of someone. Oh yeah: the old Inca in The Seven Crystal Balls.
“Damn, but it’s hot!” said Manu, yanking off his T-shirt. Underneath, he was lean as a rake. Even when he was seated, his stomach didn’t bulge. He turned back to Anthony, relentless.
“Okay, here we go. Time’s up, pal. Go ahead. You take a big snort, and bingo!”
Anthony knelt in front of the coffee table. His forehead was sweaty and his chest was so tight he thought he might faint.
“You’ll see. It’ll do you good.”
Anthony put the straw in his right nostril and inhaled hard. When he stood up, his fear was gone. He’d done it. He was feeling kind of proud of himself.
“Ha-ha!” Le Grand laughed. “So?”
Anthony was blinking. Aside from the irritation in his sinus, nothing happened. He sniffed. He pinched his nose with his thumb and index finger. He smiled. He ran his tongue over his lips.
“Holy shit!”
Le Grand burst out laughing.
“See what I mean?!”
Anthony wouldn’t have been able to describe the sensation. It was nothing like drinking or smoking weed. He felt completely in control, sharp as a scalpel. He could pass the baccalauréat as an independent candidate. And Steph suddenly seemed incredibly approachable.
His cousin followed suit, and when he raised his head, he was smiling, too. The two boys had met on the other side, safely home, all things considered. And it felt damned good.
At that point, the afternoon started to race by at an alarming speed.
Manu cut another three lines. Then he found a bottle of pastis and poured them big glasses on the rocks. Anthony was talking-talking-talking at top speed about the meaning of life, about coke, and he was thanking Manu, he was so happy to be there, no shit it was so cool, he dared say he’d like to try it again. As he talked, he reveled in his precision, his exactly calibrated elocution, the unbelievable speed of his thoughts. Talking felt like being in a speed-skating race; the feeling of speed in the turns was phenomenal.
Soon, he took off his T-shirt. His cousin was grinding his teeth, then got bare-chested as well. Manu wanted them to listen to something on the hi-fi. He spent a long time pressing Fast Forward and Play on the tape player. He was looking for a Janis Joplin song where she prays to God to give her a Mercedes-Benz, but it must’ve been on another cassette, and he finally gave up. Glancing at his watch, Anthony was surprised to see that it was only a little past three. He had the impression he’d been there for hours. The dog had gone back to sleep. Anthony asked what had happened to its paw.
Manu returned to his armchair, suddenly in a bad mood. With his cigarette, he started singeing the few curly hairs growing below his belly button. An unpleasant charred smell filled the room.
“It was an accident.”
“Car crash?”
“No. An asshole at a party. The dog was asleep on the sofa. This moron sat down on him.”
“Oh, shit.”
“He broke his paw in four places. Nobody told me. By the time I found out what happened, it was too late. They had to cut it off.”
“No…”
“He whimpered for hours, poor thing. And not one fucking person got off his ass to help.”
Manu drew so hard on his cigarette, you could hear the tobacco crackle. The story had pretty much killed the mood, as if from then on, the little dog’s presence kept them from having a good time. Anthony’s head felt heavy. He saw the cousin putting his T-shirt on.
“D’you really want to get your bike back?” asked Manu.
“What?”
He took his time before answering, to keep them in suspense. He took another long drag, his cheeks sunken, eyes wide and rolling—a crow.
“Your bike. Because if Hacine swiped it, there’s only one way to get it back, pal.”
He stood up and went into the kitchen. The boys could hear him fumbling for something under the sink. When he staggered back, his shoulder bumping along the wall, he was carrying a bundle. He tossed it to them but misjudged the throw, and the thing hit the floor with a thump.
“Go ahead. Take a look.”
“What is it?” asked the cousin.
“What do you think?”
In fact, the shape of the bundle didn’t leave much doubt about what it contained.
“Go ahead.”
Anthony picked up the gun and peeled away the old L’Équipe newspaper pages. The pistol was wrapped in a cloth. It was a MAC 50. He took it in both hands and gazed at it. It was super beautiful.
“It’s loaded,” said Manu.
What made it really impressive was its density, the big screws in the grip, the feeling of solidity, and, to be honest, its extremely rudimentary character. Anthony ran his thumb along the grooves in the extractor. His cousin came over to take a look. He, too, touched it.
“Let me see.”
Regretfully, Anthony handed it to him.
“It’s heavy.”
Le Grand was back sitting in his armchair, smoking yet another cigarette. He looked as if he was about to be sick. He attempted a smile and, with a disdainful gesture, tapped his ash in midair.
“It’s clean. I’m giving it to you.”
The cousin laid the gun on the coffee table. Anthony was sorry that he hadn’t gripped it; he was itching to, now. He would like to hold it and see how it felt, having that possibility at the end of his arm.
“We’re gonna take off now,” said his cousin.
“Oh yeah? And just where d’you think you’re going?”
“It’s all good, Manu.”
A tiny vein was throbbing under Le Grand’s eye. Casually, he flicked his cigarette butt across the room.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve, you little pissant.”
The cousin gestured for Anthony to follow him to the door.
“You come to my place, you drink my beer, you snort my coke for free. No shit, just where d’you think you are?”
“Listen, it was cool,” said the cousin, his hands raised in an appeasing gesture. “We’re just gonna go now.”
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
Then Le Grand gagged on something. It hit his sternum and burned his whole esophagus. He struggled briefly, chin on his chest, eyes closed. When he opened them, his pupils were so dilated they were like a bottomless lake, black and uncrossable. Anthony shivered. The gun still lay between them on the coffee table. Le Grand leaned over and grabbed it.
“Now get the fuck out of here.”
He was holding the gun with strange indifference. It dangled from his bent wrist between his open thighs.
“Are you gonna be okay?” asked the cousin.
Manu looked pale, and drops of sweat began to run down his temples. He sniffed.
“I said beat it.”
As Anthony walked by him, Le Grand’s long, thin paw grabbed his biceps. It was burning hot, and there was something disgusting about the contact. Anthony thought about AIDS. He knew very well you couldn’t catch it from skin contact; they said that on TV often enough. But the thought occurred to him anyway. He felt a chill on the back of his neck as he pulled free.
“Go on, you little asshole…”
The two cousins ran out, slamming the door behind them. On the landing, the air felt cool. They stumbled down the stairs at top speed. Anthony wondered what happened to the guy who sat on the little dog.