Sanchez was bathed in sweat. Big drops were running down his forehead. He wiped himself with the back of his hand. The sweat was all over his neck too. After a moment he took out a handkerchief and mopped himself. I started to smell his sweat. He couldn’t keep still on his chair. He must be desperate to take a leak. Maybe he’d already wet his underpants.
I didn’t like this guy Sanchez but I couldn’t bring myself to hate him. He was probably a good father and husband. He worked hard, every night. He went to sleep at the same time his children went to school. When they came home, he went back to work. He probably never saw them. Except on the rare Saturdays and Sundays when he took a day off. Once a month, I guessed. At the beginning, he’d fucked his wife when he came home, waking her up, which she didn’t like. After a while, he’d given up, and now he made do with a hooker a few times a week. Either before going to work, or after finishing. With his wife, it was probably only once a month now, when his day off fell on a Saturday.
My father had led the same kind of life. He was a typesetter on the daily paper La Marseillaise. He’d leave for the paper about five o’clock in the afternoon. I’d grown up during his absences. When he got home at night, he’d come in and kiss me, smelling of lead, ink and cigarettes. It didn’t wake me up. It was just part of my sleep. Whenever he forgot, which sometimes happened, I had bad dreams. I imagined him abandoning my mother and me. When I was about twelve or thirteen, I often dreamed that he had another woman in his life. She looked like Gélou. He’d be feeling her up. Then, instead of my father, it’d be Gélou who came in and kissed me, which would give me a hard-on. I’d hold on to Gélou and caress her. She’d come into my bed. Then my father would appear, and make an angry scene. And my mother would join in, in tears. I never found out if my father had had other women. He’d loved my mother, I was sure of that, but their lives remained a mystery for me.
Sanchez moved around on his chair. My silence worried him.
“How old are your children?”
“The boys, fourteen and sixteen. The girl, ten. Laure. Laure, like my mother.”
He took out a wallet, opened it, and handed me a photo of the family. I didn’t like what I was doing, but I wanted to put him at his ease, in order to get as much from him as I could. I looked at his kids. They all had flabby faces and shifty eyes, without a spark of rebellion. They’d been born bitter. They’d never hate anyone except those poorer than themselves. Anyone they thought might take bread off their tables. Arabs, blacks, Orientals. Never the rich. It was already clear they’d never amount to much. Best case scenario, the boys would be taxi drivers, like their dad. And the girl a trainee hairdresser. Or an assistant at Prisunic. Ordinary French people. Citizens of fear.
“Nice kids,” I said, hypocritically. “So tell me. Who was driving your taxi?”
“Let me explain. I have a friend, Toni, well, not exactly a friend. We’re not really close. He’s got this thing going with Charlie, the bellhop from the Frantel. They find groups of suckers. Businessmen, executive types, you know what I mean? Toni lets them use the cab for the night. Takes them to the hottest new restaurants, clubs where they won’t have any problems. To finish off the evening, he fixes them up with hookers. High class ones, of course! The kind who have little studio apartments...”
I offered him a cigarette. He felt more at ease. He’d stopped sweating.
“I guess they go gambling too. Play for high stakes. Am I right?”
“Yeah. There are some really top class places. Like the hookers. Know what they like, these guys? Exotic women. Arabs, blacks, Vietnamese. But clean ones, you know what I mean? Sometimes they even make a cocktail.”
He was unstoppable now. It made him feel important to tell me all this. Plus, it excited him. I guessed he sometimes got paid in hookers.
“And you lend him your taxi.”
“That’s right. He pays me, and I hang out. Play belote with the guys. Go to see OM if they’re playing. I just declare what’s on the meter. All profit. And this isn’t peanuts we’re talking. Toni gets a cut of everything. The suckers, the restaurants, the clubs, the hookers. The whole caboodle.”
“And how often does this happen?”
“Two or three times a month.”
“Including Friday night.”
He nodded, and retreated back into his shell like a snail. We were back in a place he didn’t like. He was scared again. He knew he was saying too much, and that he hadn’t yet said enough.
“Yeah. He asked me.”
“What I don’t get, Sanchez, is this. Your pal wasn’t carrying suckers, that night. He was carrying two killers.”
I lit another cigarette, without offering him one this time. I stood up. I could feel the shooting pains coming back. Hurry it up, I told myself. I looked out the window at the harbor and the sea. The clouds were lifting. The light was incredible. Hearing him talk about hookers made me think of Marie-Lou. The blows she’d received. Her pimp. Her clients. Was she included in these round trips? Sent to take part in orgies with a bunch of rich pigs? “With or without pillows?” they asked when you made a reservation in some hotels that specialized in conferences and seminars.
The sea was silvery. What was Marie-Lou doing in my house right now? I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t imagine a woman in my house anymore. A sailing ship was heading out to sea. I’d have liked to go fishing. Anything not to be here. I needed silence. I’d been hearing these crummy stories ever since morning, and I was sick of it. Mourrabed. Sanchez and his pal Toni. The same old human corruption.
“So, Sanchez,” I said, walking up to him. “How do you explain it?”
My change of tone made him jump. He guessed the second half was starting.
“I can’t explain it. There’s never been any trouble.”
“Listen,” I said, sitting down again. “You have a family. Great kids. A nice wife, I guess. You love them. You care about them. You want to bring in a little more money. I understand that. We’re all the same. But you’ve gotten yourself mixed up in something ugly. Your back’s against the wall, and your choices are strictly limited. You have to cough it up. The name and address of your pal Toni.”
He knew we’d get to this point. He was sweating again, and that turned my stomach. Big patches had appeared around his armpits. He started to beg. I’d lost all sympathy for him. He disgusted me. I couldn’t even stand the thought of slapping him.
“But I don’t know it. Can I smoke?”
I didn’t reply. I opened the door of the office and signaled to the duty cop to come in. “Favier, book this guy.”
“I swear to you. I don’t know where he lives.”
“Sanchez, if you want me to believe this Toni of yours exists, tell me where to find him. Otherwise what am I supposed to think? Huh? I’ll tell you what I think. I think you’re jerking me around.”
“I don’t know. I never see him. I don’t even have his telephone number. I work for him, not the other way around. When he wants me, he calls me.”
“Just like a hooker.”
He didn’t pick up on that. He knew he was in real trouble, and his little brain was searching for a way out.
“He leaves messages for me. At the Bar de l’Hotel de Ville. Call Charlie, at the Frantel. You can ask him. Maybe he knows.”
“We’ll see about Charlie later. Book him,” I said to Favier.
Favier grabbed him forcefully under his arm and pulled him to his feet.
Sanchez started to blubber. “Wait. I know where you could find him. Chez Francis, on the Canebière. He often goes there for an aperitif. And sometimes, he has dinner at Le Mas.”
I signaled to Favier, and he let go of his arm. Sanchez slumped on the chair, like the piece of shit that he was.
“That’s good, Sanchez. At last we understand each other. What are you doing this evening?”
“Well, I’m driving my taxi. And—”
“Go to Chez Francis, about seven. Sit down. Grab a beer. Eye up the women. And when your buddy arrives, say hello to him. I’ll be there. Don’t try any tricks. I know where to find you. Favier will see you out.”
“Thanks,” he whined.
He stood up, sniffing, and headed for the door.
“Sanchez!”
He froze, and lowered his head.
“Let me tell you what I think. Last Friday night was the first time this Toni of yours drove your cab. Am I right or am I wrong?”
“Well...”
“Come on, Sanchez. You’re a fucking liar. You’d better not have been jerking me around about Toni, or you can say goodbye to your taxi.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“What? To tell me you get a cut from dealing with criminals? How much did they pay you for Friday?”
“Five. Five thousand.”
“Considering what they used your cab for, they really screwed you over, if you ask me.”
I walked around my desk, opened a drawer, and took out a small tape recorder. I pressed one of the buttons at random and showed it to him.
“It’s all here. So don’t forget, tonight.”
“I’ll be there.”
“One more thing. You can tell everyone, your boss, your wife, your friends, that we’ve dropped the red light business. Out of the kindness of our hearts.”
Favier pushed him out of the office and closed the door behind him, with a wink at me. I had a lead. Or at least something to think about.
I was lying down. On Lole’s bed. It was an instinctive thing. I’d gone there again, just like I had on Saturday morning. I wanted to be in her apartment, in her bed. Just like I wanted to be in her arms. And I hadn’t hesitated. For a moment, I imagined Lole opening the door for me and letting me in. She’d make me a coffee. We’d talk about Manu and Ugo. The old times. The present. Us, maybe.
The apartment was shrouded in shadow. It was cool, and the smell of mint and basil was still strong. The two plants needed watering, so I watered them. That was the first thing I did. Then I undressed and took an almost cold shower. Then I set the alarm for two o’clock and lay down between the blue sheets, exhausted. With Lole’s eyes on me. The way her eyes were when her body moved above mine. They were black as anthracite, and thousands of years of wandering shone in them. She was as light as the dust of the open road. Follow the wind, her eyes said, and you’ll find the dust.
I didn’t sleep long, no more than fifteen minutes. There were too many things on my mind. I’d held a little meeting with Pérol and Cerruti in my office. The window was wide open, but there was no air. The sky had become overcast again. A storm would have been welcome. Pérol had brought beer and sandwiches. Tomatoes, anchovies and tuna. Not so easy to eat, but better than the usual revolting ham sandwiches.
“We took Mourrabed’s statement, then brought him here,” Pérol said. “This afternoon, we’ll confront him with the guy he beat up. We’ll keep him for forty-eight hours. Maybe we can find something on him that’ll stick.”
“How about the girl?”
“She’s here, too. Her family’s been notified. Her elder brother’s coming to get her. He’s taking the high speed train at 1:30. Bad news for her. She’ll be back in Algeria in no time.”
“You could have let her go.”
“Yeah,” Cerutti said. “And in a month or two we’d have found her dead in a cellar.”
These kids’ lives had barely started and already they’d reached a dead end. Other people had made the choice for them, and it was always between the lesser of two evils. Cerutti was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. He was surprised by the way I was hounding Mourrabed. He’d been in the team a year and had never seen me like this. Mourrabed didn’t deserve any pity. He was ready to do anything. You could see it in his eyes. Plus, he felt protected by his suppliers. Yes, I wanted him to go down. And I wanted it to be here and now. Maybe it was a way of convincing myself that I was still capable of leading an investigation, and seeing it through to the end. That way, I’d feel more confident about seeing Ugo’s case through to the end too. Maybe even Leila’s.
There was something else. I needed to believe in myself as a cop again. I needed boundaries, rules, codes. Something to hold on to. Every step I was about to take would move me farther away from the law. I was aware of that. I knew that when it came to Ugo and Leila, I wasn’t thinking like a cop. I was being swept along by my lost youth. All my dreams belonged to that part of my life. If I still had a future, that was the way I had to return.
I was like any man staggering toward his fifties. Wondering if life had lived up to my hopes. I wanted to answer yes, and I didn’t want that yes to be a lie, but I was running out of time. Unlike most men, I couldn’t have another kid with a woman I didn’t love anymore, as a way of keeping the lie at bay and allaying suspicion. I knew that was common enough. I was alone, and I was forced to look the truth in the face. No mirror would tell me I was a good father, a good husband. Or a good cop.
The bedroom seemed less cool now. Behind the shutters, I could sense a storm was still brewing. The air was getting heavier all the time. I closed my eyes, thinking maybe I could go back to sleep. Ugo was lying on the other bed. We’d pushed the two beds together under the fan. It was mid-afternoon. The slightest movement, and we’d sweat gallons. He’d rented a little room on Place Ménélik. He’d arrived in Djibouti three weeks earlier, without warning. I’d taken two weeks’ leave and we’d hotfooted it to Harar to pay homage to Rimbaud and the deposed princesses of Ethiopia.
“So, Sergeant Montale, what about it?”
Djibouti was a free port. You could do a whole lot of business there. You could buy a boat, a yacht, at a third of the usual price, take one as far as Tunisia and sell it for twice what you paid. Better still, you could fill it with cameras and tape recorders, and sell them to tourists.
“I still have three months to serve, then I’m going home.”
“And after that?”
“Hell, I don’t know!”
“You’ll see, it’s even worse than it used to be. If I hadn’t left, I’d have killed someone, one day or another. Just to eat. To live. I don’t want the happiness they have in store for us. I don’t believe in that kind of happiness. It stinks. The best thing is not to go back. I’m never going back.” He took a thoughtful drag on his Nationale. “I left, and I’m never going back. You felt the same.”
“I didn’t feel the same, Ugo. It’s just that I was ashamed. Of me. Of us. Of what we were doing. I just found a way to burn my bridges. I don’t want to go back to that.”
“So what are you going to do?”
I shrugged.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to re-enlist with these dickheads.”
“No. I’ve given them enough.”
“So?”
“I really don’t know, Ugo. I don’t want to fuck up again like we did before.”
“Then go get a job in the Renault factory!”
He stood up angrily and went to take a shower. Ugo and Manu loved each other like brothers. I’d never been able to compete with their friendship. But Manu was consumed by his hatred of the world. He couldn’t see beyond that. Even the sea meant nothing to him anymore, though it was still the place where our adolescent dreams set sail. That was too much for Ugo, and he’d turned to me. Over the years, we’d gotten really close. Despite our differences, we had the same fantasies.
Ugo knew why I’d ‘escaped.’ He’d understood it later, after another holdup that had turned violent. He’d left Marseilles, given up Lole. He was sure I’d follow him. To revive our dreams, all the things we’d read about. The wine-dark sea: that, for us, was the only true starting point for every adventure. That was why Ugo had come all the way here. But I didn’t want to follow where he wanted to go. I had neither the inclination nor the courage for that kind of adventure.
I’d come back here. Ugo had left for Aden, without a word of goodbye. Manu wasn’t too pleased to see me again. Lole wasn’t very enthusiastic either. Manu was mixed up in some ugly stuff. Lole waited tables at a bar in the Vieux Port called the Cintra. They were dying to see Ugo again. They each had affairs, which made them strangers to each other. Manu loved out of despair. Every new woman took him farther from Lole. Lole loved the way other people breathed. She moved to Madrid for two years, then came back to Marseilles, then left again and went to live with some cousins of hers in Ariège. Each time she came back, Ugo still wasn’t there.
Three years ago, Manu and Lole had started living together in L’Estaque. For Manu, it had come too late. Bitterness must have driven him to it. Or fear of Lole leaving again, fear of being alone. Alone with his lost dreams and his hatred. As for me, I’d worked hard for months. Ugo was right. You had to make up your mind. Go away, or stay and kill someone. But I wasn’t a killer, so I’d become a cop. Shit! I said to myself, furious at not being able to sleep.
I got up, made coffee, and took another shower. I drank my coffee still naked. I put on a Paolo Conte album, and sat down in the armchair.
Guardate dai treni in corsa...
OK, so I had a lead. Toni. The third man. Maybe. How had these guys cornered Leila? Where? When? Why? What was the point of asking myself these questions? They’d raped her, then killed her. That was the answer. She was dead. Why ask questions? To understand. I always had to understand. Manu, Ugo, Leila. And Lole. And all the others. But was there anything still to understand? Weren’t we all beating our heads against a brick wall? The answers didn’t exist. And the questions led nowhere.
Come di come di
La comédie d’un jour, la comédie d’la vie
Where would Batisti lead me? Deeper into trouble. That much was sure. Was there a connection between Manu’s death and Ugo’s? A connection other than Ugo wanting to avenge Manu? Who stood to gain from Zucca’s death? One of the Marseilles families. I couldn’t see beyond that. But which one? And how much did Batisti know? Whose side was he on? He’d never taken sides before. Why now? What was the meaning of that show the other night? The slaying of Al Dakhil, and then the two killers being taken out by Auch’s men. Was Toni involved in it? Was he being covered by the cops? Did Auch know about his tricks and have some kind of hold over him? And how had the three guys lifted Leila? Back to square one.
Ecco quello che io ti darò,
E la sensualità delle vite disperate...
The sensuality of desperate lives. Only poets talk like that. But poetry has never had an answer for anything. All it does is bear witness. To despair. And desperate lives. And who the hell had beaten me up?
Of course, I was late for Leila’s funeral. I’d lost my way in the cemetery looking for the Muslim section. It was in the new annex, a long way from the old cemetery. I didn’t know if more people died in Marseilles than anywhere else, but death extended as far as the eye could see. All this part was treeless. Paths hastily tarred. Side paths of beaten earth. Rows of graves. The cemetery followed the geography of the city. This section was like North Marseilles. The same desolation.
I was surprised how many people were there. Mouloud’s family. Neighbors. And a lot of young people. About fifty of them. Mostly Arabs. I recognized some of them. I’d seen them in the projects. Two or three of them had even been brought into the station house for trivial offences. Two blacks. Eight whites, also young, boys and girls. Next to Driss and Kader, I recognized Leila’s two girlfriends, Yasmine and Karine. Why hadn’t I called them? I’d put my head down and charged straight ahead, and hadn’t even questioned her closest friends. I wasn’t thinking straight. But then I never had.
Mavros was standing a few steps behind Driss. He was a good man. He’d see things through with Driss. Not only as a boxing coach, but as a friend. Boxing isn’t just about hitting. The most important thing is learning to take the blows. To roll with the punches. To make sure the blows caused the least possible harm. Life was nothing but a series of rounds. Roll with the punches. Hold steady, don’t flinch. And land punches in the right place, at the right time. Mavros would teach Driss all that. He rated him highly, even thought he was the best fighter in the gym. He’d pass on everything he knew. He’d treat Driss like a son, even if there were sometimes conflicts. Driss could become what he hadn’t been able to.
I was reassured by that, because I knew Mouloud wouldn’t have the strength or the courage to do it anymore. If Driss did anything stupid, he’d give up. Most parents of the kids I had dealings with had given up. Life had kicked them around so much, they refused to confront what was happening. They turned a blind eye to everything. Bad company, bad behavior at school, fights, shoplifting, drugs. A million times a day, a slap might have done the trick, but never came!
I remembered going the previous winter to collar a boy in the Busserine project. The youngest of four children, and the only one who hadn’t so far either been arrested or spent time in prison. He’d been identified as being involved in some minor holdups. A thousand francs maximum. His mother opened the door to us. All she said was, “I’ve been expecting you,” then she burst into tears. For more than a year he’d been extorting money from her to buy drugs. By way of persuasion, he’d beaten her. She’d started hustling tricks around the project to keep her husband out of it. He knew everything, but preferred to keep his mouth shut.
The sky was leaden. Not a breath of air. The asphalt was burning hot. Nobody could keep still. It was impossible to stay here much longer. Someone must have realized that, because from that point the ceremony picked up speed. A woman started crying. She was the only one. For the second time, Driss avoided my eyes. But I knew he was watching me. There wasn’t any hatred in his eyes, but a hell of a lot of contempt. He’d stopped respecting me. I hadn’t been equal to the task. As a man, I should have loved his sister. And as a cop, I should have protected her.
When my turn came to embrace Mouloud, I felt out of place. Mouloud had two big red holes where his eyes should have been. I hugged him. But I meant nothing to him anymore. Just a bad memory. The man who’d told him to hope. Who’d made his heart beat faster. On the way out, Driss hung back with Karine, Jasmine and Mavros just to avoid me. I’d said a few words to Mavros, but my heart wasn’t in it. I found myself alone again.
Kader put his arm around my shoulders. “Dad’s stopped talking. Don’t be angry. He’s like that with us too. You have to understand him. It’ll take Driss a long time as well.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Leila loved you.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to get into a discussion about Leila. Or about love. We walked side by side, in silence.
“How did she let herself get picked up by those guys?” he said.
The same question again. When you’re a girl, an Arab, and you’ve lived in the suburbs, you don’t just get in any old car. Not unless you were crazy. But Leila had her feet on the ground. The Panda was in working order. Kader had brought it back from the university residence, with Leila’s things. So someone had come to pick her up. She’d left with him. Someone she knew. Who? I had no idea. I had the beginning and the end. Three rapists, according to my theory. Two were dead. Was the third one Toni? Or someone else? Was he the one Leila knew? The one who’d come to pick her up? And why? But I couldn’t tell Kader what I was thinking. The case was closed. Officially.
“Luck,” I said. “Bad luck.”
“Do you believe in luck?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have any other answers. No one does. The guys are dead and—”
“What would you have preferred? To see them in jail?”
“They got what they deserved. But I still wish I could have had them in front of me, alive.”
“I’ve never understood how you can be a cop.”
“Neither do I. It just happened.”
“It’s a pity it did.”
Yasmine joined us. She slipped her arm into Kader’s, and snuggled up to him. Kader smiled at her. A loving smile.
“How much longer are you staying?” I asked Kader.
“I don’t know. Five, six days. Maybe less. I don’t know. There’s the store. Uncle can’t manage it anymore. He wants to leave it to me.”
“That’s good.”
“I also have to see Yasmine’s father. We may go back up together.” He smiled, then looked at her.
“I didn’t know.”
“Neither did we,” Yasmine said. “I mean, we didn’t used to. It wasn’t till we were apart that we realized.”
“Are you coming to the house?”
I shook my head. “It’s not my place, Kader. You know that, don’t you? I’ll go see your father later.” I glanced at Driss, who was still hanging back. “And don’t worry about Driss, I’ll keep an eye on him. So will Mavros.”
He nodded.
“Don’t forget to invite me to the wedding!”
The one thing I could give them now was a smile. I’ve always been good at smiles.