Franck’s head is spinning. The background hum of the guests is assailing him more and more acutely. He is in a cold sweat. The novelist goes on: “Above all, you have to be morally irreproachable! When I write I imagine I’m Michael Moore: I ridicule conservatives, the wealthy, I condemn war, racism, and sexism. And don’t forget the homophobes! There are more faggots than ever before, so you’d better get them on your side” – he throws a glance at Lyllian – “rather than at your backside.” (This sally provokes several belly laughs.)
The models, across the table, are relating the remainder of their evening. “And then, to cap it off, we dragged along Lili Wagner’s daughter, and the little skank was pushing packets of coke out through her pussy.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I swear! It was like a candy dispenser, you know those things that look like plastic guns and you stuff with mints? She shot us out almost half an ounce.”
“I don’t believe it!”
“Yes, yes, I promise you. I have her number, look!”
“The little slut!”
This conversation risks compromising the Le Carrés. At one end of the table the von Wirts are whispering vehemently. The carrot-top cousin is blushing and wringing his hands. As for Franck, he is torn between his pleasure at seeing the coterie suffer from its own contradictions and his unreserved disgust for the male models with their long thin limbs and airs of devil-may-care druggies.
Looking upset, Evia says, “Thank you, gentlemen, I think we’ve heard enough.” Seizing the initiative, she changes the subject. “Have you read the newspapers? That murder, just a few streets from here… It sends shivers down my spine.”
Here we go, thinks Franck. That murder is no worse than the ones your husband pays for.
Mrs. von Wirt speaks up, for the first time since the start of the meal. “Yes, Evia, I saw it in the morning papers… My God, how horrible!”
The models chorus that it’s really dreadful the sort of things that go on nowadays, while the novelist acts the expert: he has consulted widely among famous psychiatrists and retired FBI officers in order to draw characters with “a plausible psychological makeup, the key to a successful novel.”
“You see,” he goes on, “those guys are sick more than anything, very sick. But it’s a special kind of sickness, for which the only cure is a lethal injection.” He chortles.
“But if they’re sick…?” asks Evia, with a hint of reproach in her voice.
“Then you just have to make sure they don’t recover – it’s that simple!” replies the novelist.
“Do you think he’s still around?” asks one of the models.
“Of course he is! Guys like that don’t go hunting far from home. You can be sure he’s lying low a few blocks away, relishing his deed!”
“My God!” moans Mrs. von Wirt.
The models declare that they are terrified.
“But let me point out,” says the man of letters, “that for an artist like myself it does possess a certain interest.”
“You’re incorrigible!” declares Evia.
For a few moments Franck has been gazing vacantly around the room and at the guests. His conversation with Lyllian has ended. He’s wondering if the flutist isn’t just as empty as the others after all. Maybe he’s just more pleasant to look at.
“The worst of it is,” Mr. von Wirt goes on, “that the killer didn’t take anything! Not a thing! He left a wallet with more than a hundred dollars in it. What about that? It makes no sense! What do you make of it?”
Abruptly, Franck turns toward him and looks him in the eye. “Well, I make of it that he’s an honest man.”
Evia throws him an astounded glance, while her husband lowers his head, and the guests’ chatter stops. Only the novelist sneers, “You’ll have to explain your thinking!”
“What I mean is that his act was as spontaneous as it was disinterested. Just think, a man who’s not calculating – I find that refreshing.”
“Franck, are you serious?”
“All the same,” Le Carré puts in, “the guy will be entitled to a good long vacation when they get their hands on him!”
And what about you? thinks Franck.
“Oh, but it’s not at all sure they’ll ever get their hands on him!” declares the novelist. “Do you know the percentage of murders that remain unsolved?”
“Do you think he’ll do it again?” asks Evia.
“No doubt about it! But where? And when? No one can say. Sometimes brutes like that can lie low for years! But they always end by killing again—”
“It’s dreadful!”
“Dreadful!” echo the models.
“It’s life,” summarizes the novelist.
Franck is not unhappy to have distressed the company. The models gaze at him timidly, half in admiration, half in disgust. The novelist seems to consider him a kindred spirit. Only Lyllian keeps his eyes lowered.
“You don’t agree?” Franck asks him.
“The thing is… The way I see things…”
“It’s wrong to kill your neighbor?”
“Do you find that ridiculous?”
“No, I find it charming. It’s just that I think there are certain people you can kill.”
“You mean criminals, for instance?”
“I mean people who get in your way. You have to remove obstacles from your path, precisely because they are obstacles. It’s only later that justice and human rights come into play.”
“But what about the old guy… The old guy, apparently, had never done anything.”
“Maybe he just became an obstacle to someone… And anyway, between you and me, that old guy wasn’t necessarily an angel… We’re much too quick to make saints of the dead. What’s to say that he’d never killed anyone? Committed rape? Spied on his granddaughter in the shower? Who’s to know? Videoed her? Then sold the files? I—”
“So you dream of the gallows while smoking your hookah,” says Lyllian with a smile.
“Do people really read Baudelaire in Dallas?”
“No, either you’re poor, in which case you drink and murder someone, or rich, in which case you drink and kill yourself.”
Franck laughs. “But not you!”
“But not me.”
“I like you. I like unusual people.”
“Like the killer?”
“No. He does break the monotony, there’s no denying it. But maybe he’s very ordinary. An ordinary man is above all someone predictable, decipherable, tragic. Someone as pitiful as he’s repugnant.”
“And I’m neither pitiful nor repugnant?”
“No. You should have died of an overdose halfway between a sugar refinery and a cotton field. I think you haven’t come out of it too badly” – he lowers his voice and leans toward Lyllian – “as long as you don’t compromise yourself too often at dos like this one.”
Just then the novelist leans toward Evia. “I think our two lovebirds are going to end up in the same nest.” The models whisper together about inviting them to a “Special K party” on Hammer Street that evening.
“You’re right, but I find a kind of warmth here—”
“Compared to your family in Texas?”
“Yes… And I find people who can understand me, that I can talk to—”
“Think again! You can’t talk to these people.”
“I don’t deny that sometimes that’s true…”
“If they offer you money, take it. But don’t look up to them.”
“You’re being hard, Franck.”
“Worse! All things considered, I prefer truckers, or longshoremen. They let you know right away that they don’t give a damn about you. They don’t waste any time spouting or spinning yarns.”
“So basically, where ordinariness is concerned, or idiocy, you’d rather be left in peace?”
The novelist is whispering in Evia’s ear: “I hope they’ll be able to restrain themselves till they leave… What passion!”
The
models are tittering more than ever, nudging one another, and declaring that those two would most definitely fit in at their party.
“Yes, you could say that my peace and quiet are important to me.”
“Enough to kill for?” asks Lyllian.
“Enough to kill for.”
“At least you’re not ordinary.”
A veil of melancholy comes over Franck’s eyes. “I’d like to be sure of it, Lyllian.”
Professor Caron seems to be listening to the conversation with considerable interest. But he says nothing, and no one speaks to him.
“Why do you doubt it?”
Several seconds of silence.
“I’d rather talk about it some other time,” answers Franck, excusing himself, rising, and making for the bathroom.
“Ah! There you are! You can be sure the other one will follow him,” exults the novelist. The models look at one another knowingly.
But the other one doesn’t follow him. In the suffocating marble bathroom Franck takes out his mirror and recommences the same ritual as before, slightly increasing the dose. He snorts the powder slowly, almost grain by grain. Then he puts his straw away and stares at himself in the mirror. He examines his reflection for a few minutes, absorbed in his own gaze, then makes a face at himself, unlocks the door, and returns to his place.
When Franck leaves the mansion, it is past four o’clock. Darkness is beginning to fall. Lyllian had left a few minutes earlier, after accepting the models’ invitation. Franck feels weary and depressed. Lance Le Carré shakes his hand almost warmly, and Evia is all over him. The with-it novelist and the models extort an embrace from him and loudly express their regret that they won’t see him later. As for Professor Caron, he seems to hesitate. He approaches Franck and timidly informs him that he hopes to see him soon again, that he would like to know him better. He only had to talk to me during lunch, thinks Franck. Why did he say nothing? Why do I have the impression that he was following me yesterday? And that shifty, downcast expression of his… What a strange character! Who would have thought it? Two unusual people in a backwater like this!
He says goodbye to the company at large, crosses the avenue flanked with cypress trees, gets into the 300C, and drives away.
11
Sinatra is making the speakers in the Ford squad car vibrate: “My Kind of Town.”
“Know what drives me crazy?” asks the sheriff. “It’s feeling that what we do is useless …”
“That we’re just a drop in the ocean, you mean?”
McCarthy nods. “Yes, that we get out of bed every morning remembering a few scraps of youthful idealism, the oath we’ve taken, serving the citizens, the country, and then seeing that for every guy we arrest three others come out of the woodwork. I sometimes feel I’m swimming against the current, and I’m not strong enough.”
“And yet you keep going. Otherwise, Sheriff, you and me wouldn’t be digging up dirt, getting stuck with interrogations that lead nowhere, and picking up the mutilated bodies of old guys on street corners.”
Below Interstate 93, the ocean reflects the pale afternoon sun. Gomez is lost in it for a few moments, and then adds, “We’re the ones who do the dirty work, you and me; we often wish we were in a different place, but we get out of bed every morning all the same.”
McCarthy nods and sighs, “Yes, but we do have something else…” The sheriff is shaking. He brings his hand to his heart and then back to the steering wheel. He completes the sentence: “Family.”
“Sure, that’s something…”
“That’s what gives meaning.”
He thinks of the inhabitants of the Bellams, the drunks, the lost souls, the utterly empty ones. For them, waking up in the morning, getting out of bed, and dressing doesn’t have much more meaning than dying, or killing someone. These are the people Gomez and McCarthy have to deal with every day in the Bellams, wherever in Watertown, down dark alleys. He knows them. He has heard them say under questioning that they don’t care about anything and describe how apathetic, how indifferent they feel. Beating up an old woman or lighting a joint, killing themselves or opening a can of Coke, it’s all the same to them. The sheriff and his deputy have set themselves an objective they call Justice. That is the path they follow, that guides and inspires them; what they do has a reason. The ones that sit in the back of the Ford squad car only act by instinct. They have no principles, no ideals. They have only themselves, and the dark – which are sometimes one and the same.
Yet not everything seemed foreordained. They had prospects. They were meant (their parents used to say) for a brilliant career, to attend the best schools, to have a position in life. Life would smile on them. The angels, heaven itself, would welcome them. They were promised a happy life! A varied one! They had a winning streak that lasted fifteen, twenty, sometimes thirty years. And then they lost. When, exactly? It’s not easy to say.
Barney Henderson, “Cousin Bart,” was among those who seemed to show great promise. He had a quick intelligence, and his parents were predicting the moon for him even before he could read or count. The family bled itself almost white to allow him to attend a decent college. Barney lived up to expectations. He was serious, determined – not especially brilliant, but he made up for his lack of genius by hard work. He went on to art school, and then achieved a measure of success, first in New York and later in Europe. He never became an important painter, yet he was able to earn some recognition and enough money to buy a studio beside the sea south of Boston, not far from Duxbury. At first he was content there. He would go painting in the evening, along the seashore. The neighborhood kids called him “The Old Man and the Sea.” Then regrets began to accumulate, a swarm of tiny wounds to his pride. His body grew tired. He was losing his grip on life, on hope. As the years went by he became the old man and the six-pack, the old man and the stupid program on MTV, and finally the old man and the weekly visits to a state clinic to pee in a beaker. Nowadays he hardly ever paints. He pays his rent, and his bills. Then, at night, he sheds a few tears.
“You think Barney knows something?” asks Gomez.
“I’ve no idea, but young Julia says her grandfather grew close to him over the past few months and used to visit him often.”
“And Laura Henderson?”
“Maybe she’s in Philly… Apparently she has a girlfriend living there. Hendrix is looking into it.”
“And Barney, what are we hoping to get from him?”
“Maybe a crack in the apparently blank wall of Jimmy’s existence.”
Gomez sighs. “It was me drew up the inventory of his truck and his apartment. Frankly, if there is any crack… What I mean is, the guy had to have some faults, some secrets, a few small skeletons in his closet, but at first sight there was nothing that would point to anything criminal, or suggest that—”
“Yes, but the thing is, there was a crime.”
Barney Henderson’s house, from outside, gives the impression of a certain elegance – despite the grass growing up to the windowsills and the paint mostly flaked off the façade. Standing less than a hundred yards from the ocean, in a neighborhood where opulent houses flourish, it does confer a certain standing on its occupant: the mail carrier calls him respectfully “Mr. Henderson” and the home-care nurse (a psychotic African-American woman) has already made him three offers of marriage, two for herself and one on behalf of her daughter.
But once you go inside, the illusion crumbles. The main room, a kind of sitting/dining room, seems to have been laid waste by one of those storms that develop over the sea: it’s a real catastrophe, a local apocalypse sponsored by Budweiser. The furniture is decaying and collapsing onto the floor, the curtains are filthy and sagging, as are the lampshades; bottles and scraps of food litter the ground. In the middle of it all, under an incredible farrago of blankets, moth-eaten shawls, and greasy knee blankets, sits Barney Henderson, tiny, puny, and bent, who expels three loud belches before the two officers can extract a word from him.
“Enemies? Why would my cousin have had enemies?”
“That’s for you to tell us, Mr. Henderson,” Gomez interjects.
“What kind of enemy do you think he could have had, apart from his daughter’s screw? They’re a fine pair of good-for-nothings.”
“So, apart from Alexander Marshall, you can’t think of anyone that might have done this thing?”
Barney shakes his head.
“Did your cousin ever talk to you about any problems or concerns he might have had?”
“Yeah, he hadn’t been peeing too good of late, but mind you it was a lot better than me. Do you know, the doctor told me—”
Gomez interrupts. “And apart from his health?”
Henderson reflects. His little red-rimmed eyes scrutinize the curtains, hoping to find an answer. “Maybe dough.”
“Your cousin had money problems?”
“Oh, who doesn’t! Tell me, how great do you feel toward the end of the month yourself?” He is shaking. He flies into a rage. “For God’s sake, for a few years now it’s really been going down the tubes for everyone. Don’t you see the crap that’s going on? And the assholes that line their pockets a thousand times over? Huh? And my cousin must have felt it too!”
The sheriff intervenes, with a smile. “You’re quite right, Mr. Henderson, it’s not easy for anyone. But what we’d like to know is if your cousin had contracted any debts, developed a taste for gambling, or anything like that…”
Barney rubs his chin, gives a long belch, and then answers, “There was the girl…”
“You mean Julia?” asks Gomez.
“Right! Jim’s head has been full of all kinds of fancy notions about her this last while. He said he wanted to take her into his place, send her to a good school, pay for piano lessons for her, and bullshit like that…” With a circular wave of his hand, he shows his living room. “You see what that leads to?”
Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine Page 5
