Arriving at Number 36 on Monday, Mallock felt a sense of apprehension, which he took for exhilaration. The guard on duty, a hulk in blue uniform and flat cap, greeted the two of them—the superintendent and his dread—with the kind of fearful respect that troubles more than it comforts. In the lobby the huge Christmas tree was already shedding its needles. The pine scent permeated the large stairway, replacing the permanent rubbery odor of worn linoleum. At the top of the building, overlooking the Seine, between the drug squad and the crime division, was his department—the kingdom of Dédé the Wizard. The only department furnished almost like new in the whole building, Fort Mallock occupied the very top in terms of reputation, mystery, and—already—legend.
The oldest and youngest of his colleagues, Bob and Francis, were on duty.
“Good morning, Guv.” The ever-ceremonious Robert Daranne welcomed him by bringing two fingers to his forehead in a rough version of a military salute. As vain as a young man despite his almost sixty years, he claimed vague Irish roots, insisting people call him “Bob” and addressing Mallock as “Guv” rather than “Boss.” To be fair, it was a bit hard on a man’s pride to call someone “Boss” who was fifteen years younger than you, and who’d taken orders from you for a long time. He had acted as a kind of sensei to Amédée in his early days.
Bob was the index finger on the hand of Mallock’s immediate team. A former army corporal and then captain, he had come to the police force late in life and by chance, finding himself promoted—thanks to age and merit—to the rank of chief inspector. Habitually dressed in a brown suit and too-wide pie-server tie, five feet five inches tall, redheaded, mustachioed, and short-tempered, Bob was fundamentally brave and viscerally narrow-minded. He favored no one but his superintendent. His obsessive authoritarianism made him the best person to relay the boss/guv’s orders and ensure their perfect execution. He was a dedicated colleague, but also kind of a nuisance. The role of index finger fit him to a tee.
“How was your Christmas Eve dinner?” Mallock had asked the question because he knew they were waiting for him to ask it—for his permission to talk about it, really.
Bob launched into a recitation. “Oh, fine, fine, I managed to pull it off this year. Four out of six showed up. That’s more than usual. Normally three is the record. You should have seen them; all dressed up with their hair brushed, like when they were younger. Say what you will, but family . . . that means something.”
Amédée had a brief vision of a lineup of redheads; particularly the last one, Hélias, whose godfather he was. The one Bob persisted in calling “Alas,” because he thought it was funny, and because the boy hadn’t turned out exactly like his father would have preferred. He was too skinny, too intellectual, and he was late too much. This last pregnancy had been planned by Madame Daranne without the agreement of the paterfamilias, and seven years later His Majesty was still angry about the unauthorized use of the royal sperm.
Watching Bob was like looking back in time at the way men treated women in the 1950s. Bob was a chauvinist jackass, Mallock often thought, whom guard dogs annoyed almost as much. He imagined the four grown Daranne children, together for once to make the old man happy, wearing expressions of resigned impatience mixed with fear.
“A buddy of mine and I treated ourselves to dinner at Taillevent. I won’t bore you with the details.” Slimmer than Mallock, with crew-cut hair and a waistline beginning to thicken with age, Francis was a bit of a flake, taciturn and chatty at the same time. He tended to veer between one and the other, like sun and rain on the Normandy coast. “It was to die for,” he continued in blatant contradiction of what he’d just promised. “All of it, amazing—except for the goddamn crappy wine. Ahhh-mazing. Cost us a hundred and fifty euros each. Not bad, eh? For the first course, I had . . . ”
Francis Tremolha, nicknamed “Volunteer,” always seemed as if he were trying to make up for lost time. He invariably dressed in black from head to toe, as if in mourning for his terrible childhood. Laughing one relaxed evening after three Irish coffees, he had stunned everyone with a precise and detailed comparison of the impacts of the slaps and punches delivered by his mother and father. The blows rained on him with a shoe by his mother seemed to have left as much of a mark on him as his father’s complicit impassivity during these infamous “heel sessions,” as he called them.
Amédée, without thinking, had taken Francis under his wing, just because the little dodo had crossed his path. “Talk about a stroke of luck,” the younger man was fond of saying. At twenty-eight years old, recently promoted to chief inspector, he was just discovering all the small and large pleasures in life—especially the immeasurable freedom that money could buy.
“And for dessert,” Francis continued, “we had crêpes Suzette with all the bells and whistles; the flaming Grand Marnier and the waiter in a tuxedo with the whisk and the pan and the forks. Unforgettable. And you, boss? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“I got a hell of a gift, and not from just anyone. From Dublin himself.”
“A tie?” asked Bob, stupidly.
“No, you idiot. I bet he finally gave that bizarre murder case to the Superintendent,” said Francis.
“Bingo. But let’s slow it down a little, lad. We’re not officially on the case until Tuesday.”
“Yes!” exclaimed the young chief inspector, pumping his fists like a tennis player after a winning serve.
Mallock couldn’t hold back a smile.
“Be nice; go and see if Grimaud is here yet. But don’t antagonize him, whatever you do. He’s still in charge, and he’s a bit touchy. Just tell him I’m here and available; he should understand.” He turned to his longtime colleague. “Bob, go yell at IT. I need three extra terminals hooked up to everything that moves; Europe, the United States, and the East. And get some Mac Pros. I want as much power as we can get, to process images and films.”
“How many?”
“Ken will give you the details. If you need a lucky charm, come back and get it here, okay?”
“Consider it done, Guv.”
Turning back toward the window, Mallock rubbed his hands together, almost content. Sometimes everything became simple. A mission turned up like a gust of wind and blew everything else away. He was one of the good guys, on the trail of the bad guys. Forgetting his own pain for a while, he would be in the service of the people, worthy of what he wanted to be: a good and courageous man. There was a lot of Cyrano, of course—his hero—but also some Jean Valjean in Amédée. The same physical strength, the same pride and anger, the same sentimental weakness. Like Victor Hugo’s hero he had a kind of monstrous destiny, the kind you could only fight with a shrewd mixture of resistance, resilience, and resignation.
For his happiness to be complete now, he only needed his two other captains: Julie, as sharp as she was pretty; and Jules, a straight, solid guy. The two of them were maintaining a long-distance romance. They’d been separated in the outside world, but not at Fort Mallock. The superintendent needed those two crazy kids . . . he just hoped they could stay discreet.
Outside, weak sunlight was filtering through the winter fog. He lingered for a few minutes, gazing at the view, trying not to think about anything at all. It was his way of wiping his hard drive, reformatting the data in his brain. Simply doing nothing, blocking out the slightest bit of information or faintest idea or smallest image from getting in.
After ten minutes of repairing authorizations, defragging, and throwing things in the trash, Mallock’s brain was ready. He went back on the attack, and in three hours had torn through a heap of current business: all the incoming mail, a quick meeting with Dublin, and then a discussion with his team about three cases assigned to them: today, one rape, a disappearance, and an apartment burglary with violence. Tonight, like almost every other night, he would have to slog through a mountain of paperwork. He had decided one exasperated day to reread and sign all documents that left the Fort; he was responsible for them, so he wanted to know what they were. Aside from these pressures, which he’d brought on himself like a big boy, he did mostly what he wanted.
Spared the flattened cats, the traffic hearings, the evacuation reports and domestic disturbances, he no longer had to intervene in petty squabbles to score points with the higher-ups. For a long time now he had marched to the beat of his own drum. He kept for himself the skinheads; the hunting-down and arresting of gangsters; the most wanted criminals. Professionally speaking he really couldn’t complain; he was generally left in perfect peace, or close to it. By creating his own team and fighting for materials and independence, he had succeeded in keeping useless fighting against the hierarchy, the administration, and all its parasites to a minimum. His group had not only been made more effective; it had managed to avoid dealing with the high-end rent boys, whores, and meth-heads that clogged the corridors of Number 36.