To start a scooter without a key, all you need is a screwdriver, and Anthony had one. He’d swiped it from the Romand garage on rue Général-Leclerc, where he dropped in from time to time to watch the mechanics working. Didier would sometimes let him take a bike out for a spin, which was how he got to drive a Honda CBR 1000. Those things could shoot you straight to the moon.
Right now, Anthony was walking downtown, carrying a backpack and with the screwdriver in his pocket. He was walking fast, staring straight ahead. He had stopped by to see Manu, who’d seemed delighted to help him out. “I told you, there’s only one way to deal with people like that.” The weight of the MAC 50 in his backpack was unmistakable.
After walking along boulevard Sainte-Catherine, he turned into rue Michelet. He saw what he was looking for at the end of the street: a row of two-wheelers on the sidewalk. There were always a few parked in front of the Metro. As he approached, he counted three scooters and a motorbike. Only the 103 had an antitheft lock. Anthony still had a fifty-franc bill in his pocket and figured he may as well play one last game of pinball before he went. He pushed the Metro door open.
Inside were two rows of arcade games and players, mostly young guys furiously dueling in an unbreathable atmosphere. On the back wall, a huge mirror extended the perspective, repeating the smoked-glass shimmer of the electronic screens. The owner sat in a kind of glass cage in the middle of the room. His main job consisted in making change while smoking Marlboros. In fact, teens came to the arcade as much to smoke without being seen as to play Space Invaders. The place was pretty empty at that hour, but it was jammed after class and on Saturday afternoons. Anthony asked for five-franc coins and headed for the pinball machines at the very back. He could see himself coming in the mirror, a short figure in the blue glow of the screens. He put twenty francs into The Addams Family and played briefly and badly, his mind elsewhere, balls dropping one after another. He bought another five credits, which produced the same result. After wiping his hands on his jeans, he hesitated for a moment. Two heavily made-up girls were sipping Cokes near the entrance. A guy was logging his initials among the Arkanoid high scores. Over there, two sweaty, silent boys were excitedly playing a Japanese fighting game. The younger one was pressing his controller buttons at phenomenal speed. From time to time a drop of sweat ran down his nose before falling to the floor. When the music stopped long enough to change CDs, you could hear the powerful roar of the exhaust system. Anthony played a last, equally disastrous game while listening to the Beach Boys, then kicked the pinball machine, which tilted ostentatiously. He didn’t have a cent left. He felt nervous, irresolute. His stomach had been aching for hours.
Things had taken a pretty definite turn since the night before. Anthony had been eating French fries at Antalya when his mother suddenly appeared out of nowhere. In her car, she promptly did a U-turn across the median to drive up to him, in the process nearly wiping out part of the Turk’s terrasse and two of his customers.
“Get in!”
“What’s going on?”
“Get in, I said!”
Anthony quickly obeyed. His mother had already been looking for him for a while. She looked shaken, and her hair was a mess. Her purse lay spilled open on the floor. One of the car’s rearview mirrors was dangling in midair. Anthony was dying to ask her what was going on, but she was busy wrestling the Opel’s stiff steering wheel to get them back on the road, everybody was looking at her, and she was on the verge of tears.
Later she announced:
“We’re going to my sister’s. There’s no more motorcycle. They burned it.”
She told him everything, and for Anthony, it almost came as a relief. The world of fait accompli had its advantages, after all. At least the dread of a catastrophe was lifted. They now had to get organized, manage supplies, think about money, clothes, food, and where they were going to sleep. After a week of holding his breath, it almost struck him as an improvement.
When Irène opened the door, she could hardly believe her eyes. It had been so long since the two sisters had stopped speaking. She served them tea and cake. Actually, playing magnanimous hostess was her big chance. She was never better than in melodrama. At one point the telephone began to ring and everybody around the table looked at each other for a long time without saying anything. The cousin took it upon himself to close the ground-floor shutters. It felt as if they were waiting for a tropical storm. But Patrick didn’t come over. The phone rang and rang, and Irène finally unplugged the line. Toward midnight, a heavy peace had settled on the house and they were able to eat something: some chicken breast, a little cheese, apricots so juicy they left your chin and hands sticky. It was still hot, and as the night gradually enveloped them, they started yawning despite their anxiety. They had to get some sleep. Irène unfolded the sofa and put a mattress on the living room floor. Unable to sleep, Hélène kept turning everything over in her mind without finding a desirable outcome.
In the morning, the whole family gathered in the kitchen for breakfast. Hélène and Anthony didn’t say anything. They couldn’t leave and they couldn’t stay. Like refugees, they now depended on the revocable goodwill of a foreign power. And Irène had her own ideas about what should happen next: they had to call the cops, shelters, a lawyer. Delighted and venomous, she called her brother-in-law “that bastard,” “that brute,” and “the louse.” Hélène didn’t reply. She just stirred her coffee, looking somber. She was gradually recognizing the scope of the damage and thinking of logistical and practical solutions to her misfortune. At one point, Anthony left the room, grabbed his backpack, and climbed out the bathroom window.
He was now looking at his reflection in the Metro’s big pale green mirror. A strange peace filled his chest. The time had come. He absentmindedly touched his right eye and headed for the exit.
Outside, he chose the fastest scooter, a BMW with a Pollini exhaust manifold. The area was deserted, but he had to act fast. He began by unscrewing the fairing. When one of the screws resisted, he used the screwdriver as a lever, and the plastic yielded with an unpleasant crack. He checked again to make sure no one was coming. Five hundred yards of blank wall stretched along the narrow street. His hands were now a little sweaty. He attacked the steering lock with his screwdriver, then grabbed the handlebar and gave it a sharp yank. Now he just had to kick-start the bike. He gave it a firm kick, and the motor immediately snarled to life. Passing through the custom pipes, the exhaust produced a high, cutting whine. The familiar sound alerted the BMW’s owner, who came running out of the Metro.
“Hey!”
He was a guy in sweatpants and a cap, one of those country no-necks who cruised the departmental ring roads, tough, scrawny teenagers, ugly as sin, whose love of noise was the bane of retirees and professional high schools. Other players spilled out of the arcade hall as backup. Anthony twisted the accelerator all the way and left everyone in the dust. Rue Michelet was perfectly straight, and he revved the motor until the speedometer started flirting with fifty miles per hour. At the end, he slowed to take the turn before heading for the upper town. His heart was thudding. At least he wasn’t questioning himself anymore. In the distance, a light turned red. He was tempted to ignore it but decided it was wiser to wait for the green. He was counting the seconds there when a voice surprised him.
“What in the world are you up to? What’s that scooter?”
It was Vanessa, his cousin Carine’s best friend. She walked toward him with a pair of ice skates slung over her shoulder and inspected his two-wheeler. The light turned green. She wore her usual slightly mocking expression and stood very close, one leg bent, like a dancer.
“Did you steal it? Is that it?”
“No.”
The motor was idling slowly, with a neutral purr. When she noticed the state of the fairing, Vanessa burst out laughing.
“No kidding! You did steal it! I can’t believe it!”
Unlike what usually happened, Anthony remained unmoved. Vanessa searched his off-kilter face for an explanation for this surprising calm. Simply put, he didn’t give a damn. Which unnerved her. Anthony was discovering how indifference can be very helpful in attracting girls.
“What are you up to?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
Anthony had never noticed how dark, golden, and provocative her eyes were. He asked what she was doing with ice skates in the middle of August.
“I just had them fixed.”
The skates were heavy and she set them on the ground. As she bent down, he glimpsed part of her bra through the opening of her tank top. His stomach tightened.
“So where you headed on your stolen scooter?”
“Nowhere.”
“Want to give me a ride home?”
“I can’t.”
“Come on, take me home. These are really heavy. My shoulder’s all bruised, and I’ll be stuck with thirty minutes of walking.”
True, the laces had bit into her skin. Just the same, Anthony shook his head no. He had a lot on his mind right now. For once that Vanessa was being nice. And her skin was really tan.
“Just tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s nothing at all,” Anthony repeated. “I gotta go.”
The light had turned red again. She frowned. He remembered her hand and the coolness of her fingers when she’d touched his cheek that other time.
“Anthony, just wait for a second.”
So she knew his first name. He cranked the gas and the scooter shot off with a long, rising whine, a heartbreak.
After that, everything happened in a headlong, one-way rush. Anthony steered by his heart, faster than fast, feeling the road’s slightest imperfection in his arms. On either side of his field of vision, the buildings were just a gray streak, and he enjoyed that panicky feeling of being nothing more than a moving point. When he drove, he stopped thinking, was content with being mobile, seeking the most extreme point of his thrust. He was discovering his machine’s limits. His willpower itself was turning into trajectory. At that point, falling became an illusion; an accident, virtually impossible. Anthony was riding.
Unfortunately, the ZUP projects were at the top of a very steep slope, and the scooter began to labor on the way up, getting louder as it slowed. To slough off the feeling of being bogged down, Anthony drove around at the foot of the towers for a bit, but something in his momentum was broken. He soon spotted the courtyard with the painted carousel and its heat-struck trees. A bunch of relaxed young guys were lounging under the shelter. Anthony put a foot down, watching them from a distance. Everything was calm, the scooter’s motor idling smoothly. He started up again slowly, his heels grazing the dusty ground.
For their part, the boys were half dozing, their heads in the clouds. That very morning Eliott had finally scored two 250-gram bars of Moroccan hash, cut to hell but smokable. After weeks of shortage, it was like Christmas in midsummer. So everyone had been smoking nonstop since ten in the morning, everyone was there, about a dozen guys, all seriously loaded and mellow. Eliott was in the process of assembling a six-sheet blunt, a joy.
“What’s that?”
Seb was the first to notice the odd little guy on the scooter, but he didn’t venture to leave the shade of the shelter. The guy was coming up slowly. Seb wanted to lick his lips. His mouth felt full of cardboard. His eyes narrowed to slits, he repeated his question:
“Hey…who’s that son of a bitch?”
“Your mother.”
“No, seriously.”
The little group gradually had to face the fact that the guy wasn’t there by accident.
“Hacine!”
“What?”
“The guy there…Come see.”
“What guy?”
The scooter was still approaching. Hacine stood up. With the sun, he couldn’t tell who was riding it. The guy didn’t have a helmet and was short, kind of stocky. Hacine was in a relaxed, friendly mood. He felt like going home to drink a Coke and quietly space out in front of his TV. It was so great to have dope again. Just thinking about it, his heart lightened a little. Meanwhile, his eyes gradually adjusted to the bright glare on the courtyard. The guy began to take shape. His face came into focus.
Shit.
“So who the hell is it?” asked Eliott.
“A nut job, seriously. Look at him. He’s a nut.”
Hacine left the shelter and walked straight toward Anthony. Soon there were just a few yards between them. Unable to stand it anymore, the gang started cursing in three languages. A couple of guys had already taken the initiative of leaving the shelter as well.
“You’ve got some nerve, coming here,” Hacine said flatly.
Anthony slid the strap on his backpack, opened it, and reached inside.
“Uh-oh!” someone said.
Anthony’s hand emerged holding the MAC 50. The boys all scattered back under the shelter.
“Who the fuck is that?” yelped Eliott, who suddenly felt in deep shit, being stuck in his wheelchair.
Anthony aimed the pistol straight ahead, his left eye closed.
“Don’t get excited,” said Hacine as calmly as he could.
He had the sun full in his face but could make out Anthony’s square head, his closed fist, and the gun’s muzzle perfectly. Around them, the buildings observed the scene with a plastic detachment. Hacine felt fear coming. It gave him bad advice, urging him to beg or to run. But ever since he was a kid, experience had taught him that in his world, the price of cowardice is higher than that of pain. Running away or ducking a punch condemned you to the pathetic fate of victim. It was still preferable to face the danger, even if you regretted it later. That lesson, learned a hundred times over, kept him standing there, facing the MAC 50.
Anthony cocked the hammer and felt the trigger acquire an almost sexual sensitivity. He remained calm, the scooter’s motor vibrating gently under his butt. Someone shouted from a window. Shooting at this distance, he couldn’t miss. A tiny pressure would be enough. This would produce a dull bang and the expulsion of an eight-gram metal slug that wouldn’t take even a thirtieth of a second before hitting Hacine’s skull. From that entry point, about ten millimeters across, the projectile would burn a not insignificant part of the gelatinous tissue that allowed Hacine to breathe, eat Big Macs, and fall in love. At the end of its trajectory, the nearly intact projectile would exit his head, leaving behind an irregular red gap, a mass of flesh and bone. This mechanical and anatomical sequence now shaped the relationship between the two boys. They couldn’t formulate it quite that precisely, but they both understood it. Anthony sighed. He was going to do it; he owed his father at least that much. A drop of sweat ran down his neck. Now was the time.
Then the scooter stalled.
Oddly enough, that insignificant change made Anthony’s gesture unthinkable. He felt his arm relaxing. He was drenched from head to foot. But he couldn’t leave it at that. Hacine was still standing in front of him, aflame, ashamed, very close to pissing himself. Anthony did the only thing he could think of: he spat in Hacine’s face.
He had to use his screwdriver to get out of there, which made for some awkward fiddling. Hacine didn’t dare wipe himself off. He could feel the saliva on his nose and mouth. Anthony finally fled. It was all so unforgivable.