14

“Well, it was only dislocated,” said the doctor on duty, whose address Terrier had found on a list in the window of a closed pharmacy. “You straightened it out yourself? Seriously?”

“Yes.”

“Bravo. You’re a pretty stoic fellow.”

According to the doctor, there was no call to put it in a cast. He showed Terrier how to use an elastic bandage so that the swollen finger would stay completely immobilized.

“I know,” said Terrier.

He left with his X-ray and a prescription for an anti-inflammatory cream and some painkillers; he threw the X-ray into a sewer opening, bought the medicine in an on-duty pharmacy, and returned to the hotel via the metro. Anne was sleeping. She was crying in her sleep. Terrier studied her. He had an anxious, perplexed expression. Since the young woman continued to moan in a miserable, infantile way, he took her by the shoulders. She was naked in the bed. He gently shook her. She opened her eyes and stared at him with a lost look, then she rubbed her eyes with her fists, stared at him again, and smiled mischievously.

“Bedtime,” she said. “Get into bed.”

Terrier spotted a half-empty bottle of Hennessy cognac between the bed and the wall. Anne’s speech was slurred. The man straightened up and turned his back on her.

“Try to listen carefully,” he ordered. “We’re going to have to separate temporarily. By tomorrow afternoon, my employers will know that they can find me here. I would rather keep you out of all this.”

“Keep me out of it?” Anne repeated. “That’s a good one!”

“Seriously.”

“I’m a big girl, you know.”

“Yes, I know. But if they know where you are, that gives them a way to pressure me.”

“Oh,” Anne said disdainfully. “And where am I supposed to go?”

“Near Larchant. It’s south of the Fontainebleau forest. I have a friend who has a house there. I believe I can count on him.”

“You’re well organized.”

“Unfortunately not.” Terrier glanced at Anne over his shoulder. “You’ll have to remain on your own for quite a while. But a friend spends his weekends there. You don’t have anything against blacks?”

“What?”

Anne seemed dumbfounded. Terrier repeated the question.

“Because that’s what he is,” he explained. “My pal is black.”

“But what do you take me for?”

“I don’t know. I know very little about you,” Terrier said softly.

“Come to bed.”

“I don’t know.” Terrier’s tone was indecisive at first, then firmed up. “First, we have to take care of practicalities.”

Anne sat up in bed, exposing her breasts, which were still beautiful, though heavy and just beginning to sag. She grabbed the bottle of cognac.

“How many people have you killed?”

“Don’t drink any more! We have to take care of practicalities! Practicalities!” Terrier repeated nervously. With his hands in his pockets, he was facing Anne and rocking impatiently on his heels. The young woman took a swig from the bottle.

“You’re on the blink,” she declared in a neutral tone. She might as well have been pronouncing a diagnosis concerning a broken clock. “On the blink. Come to bed, then.” She threw herself violently back down, with her eyes hermetically sealed, without letting go of the bottle. Her whole face was red, and a flush spread across her throat and breasts. “Let’s fuck.” She opened her eyes. “That’s what you wanted,” she said decisively.

“Shit, Anne, wait a second!” Terrier shouted uselessly. The door of the room, which Terrier had neglected to lock, opened behind him, and two guys came in. One of them quietly closed the door, and the other put the barrel of an S&W Bodyguard Airweight revolver to Terrier’s head.

“The company sent us,” explained the man with the revolver. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“Anne, stay calm,” said Terrier.

“Who are these faggots?” asked the young woman. She was still flat on her back, bare-breasted, red-faced, bottle in hand.

Without moving his head, Terrier turned his eyes toward the weaponless man as he was crossing the room. It was the short guy with black eyes that Terrier had already seen on the balcony in the apartment in Rue de Varenne; he was wearing the same gray overcoat.

“If you knock me off,” said Terrier, “compromising information will be made known to the public.”

“No one’s getting knocked off. We’ve come to fetch you. Who’s the naked lady?”

“You can let her go,” said Terrier. “She won’t say anything.”

“Anne Schrader, huh? Get dressed.”

“Quick work,” said Terrier.

“I’m not going to repeat it a hundred times,” the short guy cautioned Anne.

Anne put the bottle down, threw back the bedclothes, and began dressing with swift motions.

“Nice ass,” the short guy commented. “A beautiful woman.” He turned back to Terrier. “My compliments.” He searched Terrier, then the room; he pocketed the weapons. “We’re going downstairs. You’ll pay the bill. Here’s some cash.” He stuffed a wad into Terrier’s pocket. “A car is waiting for us. If you screw around, my friend here will blow your head off, and I’ll plug your whore in the belly. Got it?”

Terrier nodded. The short guy picked up their stuff and put it under his arm. Anne had finished dressing, so they got going. Terrier could see the face of the man with the revolver. He had seen him before: a copy of Le Monde diplomatique folded in four was still sticking out of his pocket.

Downstairs, Anne and the man with the revolver stayed in the middle of the lobby while the short guy accompanied Terrier to the reception desk, where the bill was drawn up and paid. The HK4, the Savage, the CZ, and the Colt Special Agent caused the pockets of the gray overcoat to bulge. They went out into the glacial night. A Renault 16 was waiting, a mixed-race Indochinese man at the wheel. Terrier sat next to the driver while the other two flanked Anne in the back. The Renault crossed the Seine and headed toward Saint-Augustin. The roads were oily and slippery, vaguely reflecting the illuminated signs, the lighted shopwindows, and the headlights and taillights of moving vehicles. There was a risk of ice forming in the coming hours.

“Listen, Christian,” the short guy said to Martin Terrier. “I hope there’s no misunderstanding. We’re bringing you to see Cox. We didn’t take any chances, and that’s normal. But it’s all nice and friendly—don’t think otherwise.”

“Okay.”

They parked in Rue La Boétie and went into an office building, where they took a broken-down elevator. Without knocking, they went through a door bearing a sign that read “IMPEX FILMS INTERNATIONAL.”

“There’s an annex of the Ministry of the Interior across the way,” said the short guy as he smiled and pointed a finger at the windowpanes, which were opaque with filth. “The day you want to raise the level of tension in France, just take a bazooka and boom!” He laughed.

Terrier and Anne stood waiting in the empty office with the man with the revolver and the Eurasian driver. The short guy had slipped out through a communicating door. He reappeared and signaled to Terrier.

“Come in. The girl stays here.”

“If something goes wrong, shout,” Terrier said to Anne.

He went into the next room. Seated at a metal desk, Cox was eating fries with his fingers from a paper plate. He was wearing a gray flannel three-piece suit and hadn’t taken off his camel’s hair overcoat, which was hanging open around him. He had a spot of grease on his double chin. He seemed tired.

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked. “There’s a coffee maker. Would you like some fries? I don’t have anything else to offer you.” Martin shook his head. “I’m glad you changed your mind,” Cox said, affecting great conviction.

“You’ve read my ad already?”

“Of course.”

“In tomorrow’s paper?”

“Of course,” Cox repeated. “We don’t use a hundred different press outlets for our correspondence. It’s not hard to pay the odd employee for advance knowledge of a small section of the classified ads. Pure routine, Christian.” He smiled. “Martin Terrier, I should say.”

“Did you know that from the beginning?”

“We like to be well acquainted with our employees. You’ve screwed things up in a big way.” Cox was still smiling. “You have this Anne Schrader with you, it seems.”

Terrier nodded. Cox shrugged.

“Is it important to you? Does she matter to you?” Terrier didn’t answer. Cox smiled at him again. “Are we still in agreement on one hundred and fifty thousand francs?”

“Two hundred thousand,” said Terrier. “You talked about two hundred thousand.”

“That was before you were run to ground. Now it’s one hundred and fifty, and that’s still a good price. And there are some in-kind benefits: you and this woman, papers, passports, all the necessaries. The target in two weeks. Until then, you’ll be taken care of, naturally.”

“I don’t want the girl taken care of. I want you to let her go.”

“Of course that’s what you want,” said Cox. “It’s impossible, of course.” He glanced wearily at Terrier. “Do you want to argue? Do you want to waste our time?”

“No. Where will the target be?”

“Here. In Paris.”

“I want to spend the two-week wait in the South Sea Islands,” said Terrier.

“Why?” asked Cox with genuine surprise.

“Because I can’t think of anything better. Where would you go, in my position?”

“I wouldn’t budge.”

“That’s not surprising.”

“You’re stupid, Christian,” said Cox with a kind of anger. “You’re an idiot. I wouldn’t make a move from here or any other place where I happened to be, because there’s not one place that’s any different from any other anymore, except for the communist countries, which are even worse. There’s no place good anymore, don’t you understand? No, I wouldn’t budge! There’s nowhere to go.”

“I want to go to the South Sea Islands,” Terrier said again.

“You will go to the Tronçais forest,” Cox said firmly.