The couple went up to the window where the large slate with the menu was clearly visible. The man put on his glasses, the better to read, and questioned his companion warily.
“What are we entitled to, exactly?”
The woman took a leaflet from her bag and unfolded it.
“It says . . . chef’s menu with house aperitif, a half bottle of wine per person, coffee or tea, all included.”
“Oh, right, not bad,” said the man after thinking for a while and nodding his head. “They’re not ripping us off. It’s a pretty good deal. We’ll save about ninety euros.”
“What a stroke of luck! On the very day we’ve come to Paris. But tell me, what sort of cuisine is it? I think I can see a black man inside. Do you suppose it’s African or West Indian? I wouldn’t have thought so, given the name. What if it’s not fresh?” she said, making a grimace. “Because this quartier . . . ”
She accompanied her last words with a vague wave of the hand to encompass the nearby buildings. The man peered through the window; a tall, portly African was waiting on the tables. He was dressed to the nines: an impeccable dark suit and a long sommelier’s apron, shoes highly polished. The room was tastefully decorated, and the chairs looked comfortable. He glanced again at the menu.
“No, I think there’s no danger where that’s concerned, the restaurant looks clean and brand-new,” he reassured her. “And there’s a lot of choice, even some vegetarian meals. It says everything’s organic, to boot. I don’t think it’s necessarily better, but it’s the in thing and it allows them to raise their prices. As for the type of food, they call it ‘world cuisine.’ In my opinion that’s bogus marketing so you can mix Chinese noodles with stew from the Auvergne. But hey, the main thing is that it’s free.”
That was indeed the main thing: this God-given meal would enable him to recoup the standard twenty-euro deduction for business meals without having forked out a centime. And if he ate voraciously, which he intended to do, he could skip supper and save an additional twenty euros. Trafficking expense claims was his specialty. He could inflate the number of kilometers he traveled by devising outlandish itineraries, and he would not hesitate to drive through the night to save on a hotel that he got reimbursed for all the same. But as his relatively sedentary position gave him only scant opportunity to claim costly professional expenses, he soon learned to diversify his activity. He sold all sorts of invoices on eBay (which he’d snatched here and there, and doctored if need be) to guys trying to con their insurance company pursuant to a burglary or some other incident. He was in the process of calculating the profit from his little escapade to Paris when his companion’s voice brought him back down to earth.
“Just so long as it’s not too spicy . . . I have rather sensitive intestines, you see,” she sighed. “But anyway, it will be a change from the cafeteria and I’m sure I’ll find something suitable. And besides, it’s on the house, as you say, we mustn’t turn it down. Let’s go!”
She opened the door and the man followed her in. The gigantic black man came to greet them with a professional smile.
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Well, yes, in a way,” gushed the woman, unfolding her leaflet again. “In fact, you invited us. I’m Madame Chauvin, I confirmed last week. It is an invitation for two, correct?”
A worried shadow passed over her gaze and she felt for her handbag unconsciously, as if to make sure her wallet and credit card were where they should be, even though she had no intention of using them.
“Absolutely, Madame Chauvin. The restaurant opened just recently and the management decided to send out invitations randomly selected from a mailing list of professionals and opinion makers. Welcome to Le Comptoir Bio.”
Toussaint N’Diaye led the couple to a round table, which he pulled to one side to allow the woman to slide in onto the bench. Then he set a tiny bouquet on the table. Nadine Chauvin, already flattered by his allusion to opinion makers, puffed herself up at so much consideration. She was a tall, chestnut-haired woman in her fifties, rotund and slightly near-sighted. Her stringy, shoulder-length hair was thick with spray in an effort to obtain some sort of volume, and the effect had been more or less ruined that morning by over three hours on the train. She was wearing a cheap woolen pencil skirt that was far too tight, and her synthetic blouse was stretched over an impressive bosom. A costume necklace disappeared into her deep décolleté; N’Diaye could not help but peer at it. She was wearing thick ankle boots that she intended to change for a pair of heels in the evening. In her travel bag she had also slipped a lace nightgown that she’d bought by mail order two years earlier, and in which she placed a great deal of hope—Chauvin was unmarried.
“I’ll bring you your aperitif right away.”
“Not too strong, I hope,” she said with a laugh to her companion. “I don’t drink all that often, and we have to have our wits about us this afternoon, don’t we, Bernard?”
“It’s nearly all settled, Madame Chauvin,” he said reassuringly. “The last file was sent off yesterday by e-mail. And there won’t be any other serious offers, according to Mazard anyway. Two or three little glasses won’t do our concentration any harm. On the contrary, you always need a little bit of fuel for a good performance!”
“Between you and me, I’m glad the hearing was postponed an hour,” purred the woman, lowering her voice. “It leaves us a bit more time to enjoy this nice free meal. Otherwise we would have probably had to turn down the invitation . . . That would have been a pity. And besides, the good news is that we’ll be spending an evening together in Paris,” she murmured with a knowing look. “A little relaxation won’t hurt, after all the overtime we’ve devoted to these complicated cases.”
The man gave a faint, sly smile, careful not to part his lips. Even though he was a good ten years younger than her, he hardly looked it. He was prematurely gray, and the way he dressed didn’t help: a tight black suit that had seen better days, shoulders sprinkled with dandruff; a light blue shirt with frayed cuffs; sturdy, clumpy ankle boots with crepe soles that looked as if they were left over from his military service. (Toussaint, who only ever bought his shoes from English bootmakers, made a face when he caught a glimpse of Gomez’s clodhoppers.) His slightly greasy hair was carefully combed over to hide an incipient bald spot. Ugly blotches spread across his nose and cheeks, marbling his skin, with its dilated pores, with a particularly dense network of tiny blood vessels.
“We’re going to have to share the same hotel room, the prices in Paris are exorbitant, and it’s still only a two star place,” he said, wryly cautious. “I reserved a room with twin beds, I hope you don’t mind.”
“We’ll just have to make do, Bernard,” she sighed.
The man wondered whether it was his mention of the shared room or the separate beds that had triggered her sigh, and he decided it was wiser not to speak of it until later. He was counting on combining business with pleasure, and he was already rubbing his hands at the thought that thanks to this trick of a double room he’d be able to get reimbursed for a lump sum per diem that would cover more than his actual expenses.
“Indeed.”
Toussaint had come over and was clearing his throat, menus in his hand.
“Today the chef’s special is sea bass with fennel and ginger, baked in the oven, with stewed vegetables. As a starter may I suggest the sweet potato samosas with coriander and Espelette pepper. And of course we have all the usual dishes on the menu,” he said, handing an open menu first to her, then to him.
“Well . . . we’ll take a closer look, what do you think, Madame Chauvin?”
“Take your time,” said Toussaint. “I’ll come back for your order as soon as you’re ready. In the meanwhile, here are your drinks: sparkling kir with a hibiscus cream.”
“Bernard, don’t be silly, call me Nadine,” she scolded, giving him a sharp little tap on the hand once she had swallowed her entire drink in one shot.
Her pudgy fingers, nails painted bright red, were covered in cheap rings. She gave a sigh of delight, her little pink tongue showing obscenely between her fleshy lips, and she shot him a concupiscent look. The man did not take offense: for many years now, no woman had ever looked at him with anything but a hint of repulsion, and things were not improving with age. To be sure, this woman had neither youth nor beauty to recommend her, but he knew full well that he wasn’t exactly born yesterday. He was sure that they would spend a memorable evening together. The aperitif was delicious, already a real tonic. And what luck! Two more full glasses had just appeared on the table as if by magic. Like a pair of raptors they swooped down on their drinks without saying a word, sharing a knowing little smile.
“We’ve been working together for such a long time, perhaps we ought to get to know each other better, don’t you think?”
“But that’s just the problem, the fact that you’re my supervisor. So I’m afraid I won’t be up your level, that you’ll get bored,” said Gomez flatteringly.
“What nonsense, Bernard! I hope at least it’s not the fact that I’m two or three years older than you?” she simpered, putting on a sulky look.
She turned away with a flutter of her eyelashes, unaware that as she did so she exposed to the overhead light her gray roots and the traces of foundation that had leaked onto her ear and neck. She’d put it on hurriedly in the bleak morning light, and now her makeup formed a thick mask that immobilized her chubby face.
“Not at all, Nadine, where did you get that idea? Two or three years older than me? You must be joking. I had never realized. And besides, I like women with a bit of experience. As they say, old pipes give the sweetest—”
“Oh, come on,” laughed Nadine, tapping him on the arm again.
He gave her a hideous smile, this time unveiling his irregular, nicotine-stained teeth. Before he’d even taken his first sip of the aperitif his breath already stank of the red wine he’d drunk on the train, on the pretext that coffee early in the morning gave him acid indigestion. He promptly closed his mouth again when he saw that Nadine Chauvin was putting on her glasses to have a better look at the room around her.
“Excuse me,” coughed N’Diaye, who had come back to their table almost immediately. “I’ll take your coats and put them in the cloakroom. You’ll be more comfortable.”
“Oh, yes, thanks.”
The woman handed Toussaint her fake fur and a little travel bag she had placed on the bench next to her, keeping only her handbag. Bernard gave him a horrible worn leatherette bomber jacket and a big briefcase where he had stuffed a change of underwear and a toilet bag, next to their work documents. At the bottom of the toilet bag he had hidden—just in case—a box of condoms. In the drugstore at the shopping mall farthest from his house—a comical precaution, given that he was single—he had wandered up and down the aisle, slowing down when he came alongside the shelf in question, only to continue immediately in the opposite direction, first toward the toothbrushes, then toward the shampoo. An impassive store detective kept a watchful eye on his circus; Gomez eventually reached for a toothbrush then suddenly, in a rush, grabbed from the shelf the first box of condoms he saw. When he reached the checkout he was dismayed to discover that they were scented, but as he didn’t have the courage to go back and exchange them, he had nevertheless placed the box on the conveyor belt.
The bar code didn’t work. The checker, a young goth with a white complexion, chewing gum as if she were excruciatingly bored, turned the box over, then with a sigh shook it several times in front of the optical scanner, to no avail. She shot Gomez a look heavy with innuendo, as if it were his fault. Reaching for the microphone next to her she eventually summoned a colleague to the rescue. Her message was broadcast throughout the entire store (Sandra, can you check the price on the strawberry condoms please? The gentleman seems to be in a hurry. No, not lemon, straw-beh-ree) while the line got longer and longer behind him. Only women, he noticed, housewives of all ages, staring at him with stern, disapproving gazes. He left without further ado, after paying cash, careful not to meet the checker’s gaze. At the sudden thought—even though it was unlikely—that his bag might inadvertently spill and scatter the precious contents of his toilet bag and other documents right there in the middle of the restaurant, he changed his mind and reached out to stop Toussaint.
“I think I’ll keep my briefcase after all, I would rather have my laptop here with me. I have two or three things to check before our meeting this afternoon. It’s a very important business meeting,” he told the waiter, as if in confidence. “We’re here in Paris on business, you see.”
“But of course, Monsieur. In that case, let me give you the password for our Wi-Fi, you’ll need it. Don’t hesitate to connect, it’s free.”
With a knowing air he leaned closer and lowered his voice, trying to ignore as best he could the man’s fetid breath.
“I’ll give you the code for the high-speed connection, which we reserve for our best customers.”
Gomez puffed himself up, jangled the change in his pocket, and slipped a fifty-centime coin into the waiter’s large palm. Toussaint had to refrain from shrieking with laughter, and after making an obsequious bow he went off to the cloakroom. He hung up their things and placed the bag on the floor. Inside the virtually empty little room an imp in a pink sweatshirt was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a laptop open on her knees, a printer next to her.
“Plan B,” he whispered, giving her a wink. “We have one hour.”