Total Chaos

by Jean-Claude Izzo

  “When an asshole gets whacked, it never makes waves. That’s good for me. And for you too. If I kill you, your buddies will soon replace you.”

  “But that won’t happen.”

  “Why not? Because you’d shoot me in the back first?”

  His eyes became slightly glazed. I shouldn’t have said that. I’d simply been dying to let him know that I knew more than he thought I did. But I didn’t regret it. I’d hit the target.

  “You have that kind of face, Toni,” I said, to cover myself.

  “I don’t give a fuck what you think! Don’t forget! You get the advice only once, not twice. And forget about Sanchez.”

  For the second time in forty-eight hours, I was being threatened. With a piece of advice I was going to get only once. Coming from Toni, it wasn’t as painful as last night, but it was just as humiliating. I’d have liked to put a bullet in his belly, right there under the table. Just to appease the hatred I felt. But I wasn’t going to screw up my only lead. And in any case, I didn’t have a gun on me. I didn’t often take my service revolver with me. He finished his mauresque, as if nothing had happened, and stood up. He gave me a look that was meant to scare me. Right then, it did. The guy was a real killer. Maybe I should start carrying my gun.

  Toni’s full name was Antoine Pirelli. He lived on Rue Clovis Hugues, in the Belle de Mai, behind Saint-Charles station. Historically, the oldest working class neighborhood in Marseilles. A red neighborhood. Around Boulevard de la Révolution, every street name commemorated a hero of French socialism. The neighborhood had given birth to hard-line union men and militant Communists in their thousands. Some well-known gangsters too, Francis the Belgian among them. These days, the Communists and the National Front got more or less equal votes there.

  As soon as I got back to the station house, I went to check the registration on his Golf. Toni didn’t have a criminal record. I wasn’t surprised. If he’d had one, which I was sure he had, someone had wiped it. My third man had a face, a name, and an address. With all the risks I’d run, it had been a good day.

  I lit a cigarette. I couldn’t seem to get out of my office. It was as if something was keeping me there, but I didn’t know what. I took another look at the Mourrabed file. I read over his interrogation, which had been completed by Cerutti. Mourrabed didn’t rent the apartment. For the past year, it had been registered in the name of Raoul Farge. The rent was paid in cash every month. Regularly too, which was unusual in the projects. Cerutti thought it was more than unusual, but he’d gotten to the Public Housing Office too late to check Farge’s file. The offices closed at five. He was planning to go back tomorrow morning.

  Good work, I told myself. On the other hand, it was a complete washout as far as junk was concerned. Nothing had been found either in the apartment or in his car. It must be somewhere. We wouldn’t be able to get an indictment against Mourrabed over a simple assault, even a particularly nasty one. We’d have to let him walk.

  It was when I looked up from my desk that it clicked. There was an old poster on the wall. The Burgundy wine route. At the bottom, the words: Visit our cellars. The cellar! Shit! That must be where Mourrabed stashed the dope. I radioed out. The call was picked up by Reiver, the West Indian, which annoyed me, because I was sure I’d put him on day duty. It irritated me.

  “What are you doing on the night shift?”

  “Replacing Loubié. He has three kids. I’m a bachelor. Don’t even have a girlfriend waiting for me. It’s fairer this way, don’t you think?”

  “OK. Get over to the Bassens project. Find out if the buildings have cellars. I’ll be waiting here.”

  “They do,” he replied.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know Bassens.”

  The telephone rang. It was Ange, from the Treize-Coins. Djamel had come by twice. He’d be back again in fifteen minutes.

  “Reiver,” I said. “Stay in the neighborhood. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in a hour at the outside.”

  Djamel was at the bar, having a beer. He was wearing a T-shirt with the words Charlie’s Pizza in black.

  “You disappeared,” I said, going up to him.

  “I work for Charlie, on Place Noailles. Delivering pizzas.” With his thumb, he pointed to the moped parked on the sidewalk. “I got a new moped. Neat machine, huh?”

  “Very nice,” I said.

  “Yeah. It’s cool and it makes me a bit of money.”

  “Were you looking for me the other night?”

  “I have something that might interest you. The guy they whacked on the steps wasn’t loaded. They planted the gun on him later.”

  I was so taken aback, my stomach contracted and the pain came back. I downed the pastis Ange had served me unasked.

  “How did you find that out?”

  “A friend’s mother. They live over the steps. She was hanging out the washing, and saw the whole thing. But she won’t say shit. Your pals have been to see her. Checking her papers and everything. She’s really scared. This is all true, man, every word.”

  He looked at the time but didn’t move. He was waiting. I owed him something and he wouldn’t leave before he had it. Even to earn a few francs.

  “This guy, you know. His name was Ugo. He was my friend. A long time ago. When I was your age.”

  Djamel nodded. He was making a mental note of it, trying to find a place for it somewhere in his head. “Yeah. From the time when you used to fuck up, you mean.”

  “That’s right.”

  He noted it again, and pursed his lips. To him, whacking Ugo like that was a rotten thing to do. Ugo deserved justice. I represented that justice. But in Djamel’s head, the word justice and the word cop didn’t really go together. I may have been Ugo’s friend, but I was also a cop, and he found that hard to forget. He’d taken one step toward me, not two. He was still a long way from trusting me.

  “He seemed like a cool guy, your friend.” He looked at the time again, then at me. “There’s one more thing. Yesterday, when you were looking for me, there were these two guys tailing you. Not cops. My friends spotted them.”

  “Did they have a motorbike?”

  Djamel shook his head. “Not the type. Wops, playing at being tourists.”

  “Wops? How do you know?”

  “Because of the way they talked to each other.”

  He finished his beer and left. Ange served me another pastis. I drank it, trying not to think of anything.

  Cerutti was waiting for me in my office. We hadn’t been able to contact Pérol. A pity. I was sure we’d hit the jackpot tonight. We got Mourrabed out of the hole and took him with us, handcuffed and still in his flowered shorts. He wouldn’t stop yelling, as if we were going to take him into a corner somewhere and cut his throat. Cerutti told him to keep his mouth shut, or else he’d be forced to slap him around.

  We drove in silence. Did Auch know the gun had been planted? I’d reached the scene before him. His team was already there. Most of them, anyhow. Certainly Morvan, Cayrol, Sandoz and Mériel. It could have been a tragic mistake. The kind of thing that happened sometimes. But what if it wasn’t? Whether or not he’d been armed, would they have shot Ugo? If they’d followed him on his ride to Zucca’s, they must have known he was still armed.

  “Shit!” Cerruti said. “There’s a welcoming committee!”

  Reiver’s car was parked in front of the block, surrounded by about twenty kids, a mixture of races. Reiver was leaning on the car with his arms folded. The kids were circling it like Apaches, in time to the music of Khaled being played at full volume. Some had their noses pressed to the window, to see the face of Reiver’s partner, who’d stayed inside, ready to call for help. Reiver himself didn’t seem too worried.

  In the evening, the kids aren’t bothered if we cruise the streets. But it really freaks them out when we come into the projects. Especially in
summer. The sidewalk is the nicest place around. A place to talk, and pick up girls. It can get a bit noisy, but no real harm is done. We advanced slowly. I was hoping they were kids from the project. If they were, we could still talk. Cerutti parked behind Reiver’s car. A few kids stepped aside, then, like flies, swarmed to our car and surrounded it.

  I turned to Mourrabed. “I don’t want you inciting a riot, OK?”

  I got out and walked nonchalantly toward Reiver.

  “Everything all right?” I asked, ignoring the kids around us.

  “Cool. These kids don’t bother me. I warned them, the first one who touches one of the tires will have to eat it. That right?” he said to a tall, thin black kid, with a Rasta hat pulled down over his ears, who was watching us.

  He didn’t bother to reply.

  “OK,” I said to Reiver. “Let’s go.”

  “Cellar N488. The super’s waiting. I’ll stay here. I prefer to listen to Khaled. I like him.” Reiver was turning out to be full of surprises. He screwed up all my statistics about West Indians. He must have guessed what I was thinking. He pointed to a block a bit farther down. “I was born over there. This is my home.”

  We brought Mourrabed out of the car. Cerutti took his arm and forced him to walk. The tall black kid approached.

  “What did the cops collar you for?” he asked Mourrabed, pointedly ignoring us.

  “Because of some fag.”

  Six kids were barring the entrance of the block.

  “The fag doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’re here to visit the cellar. Must be enough junk in there for the whole project to shoot up. Maybe you like that. We don’t. We don’t like it at all. If we don’t find anything, we let him go tomorrow.”

  The tall black kid made a sign and the others stepped aside.

  “We’re following you,” he said to Mourrabed.

  The cellar was one vast dump. Crates, cardboard boxes, clothes, spare parts for mopeds.

  “Are you going to tell us, or do we have to search?”

  Mourrabed shrugged wearily. “There’s nothing here. You won’t find a thing.”

  He didn’t sound very convincing. For once, he’d stopped showing off. Cerutti and the others started to search. There was a crush of people in the corridor. Not just the kids. Adults too. The whole block was gathering. At regular intervals, the light went out and someone pressed the time switch. We’d better put our hands on the stash quickly or there might be trouble.

  “There ain’t no junk,” Mourrabed said. He’d become very nervous. His shoulders had sagged and he was keeping his head down. “It ain’t here.”

  The team stopped searching. I looked at Mourrabed.

  “It ain’t here,” he said, regaining some of his self-assurance.

  “So where is it?” Cerruti asked, walking up to him.

  “Up there. The gas main.”

  “Shall we go?” Cerutti asked.

  “Keep searching,” I said.

  Mourrabed cracked. “Shit, man! I tell you there ain’t nothing here. It’s up there. I’ll show you.”

  “So what’s down here?”

  “This!” Béraud said, holding up a Thompson sub-machine gun.

  He’d just opened a crate. A real arsenal. All kinds of guns and enough ammunition to withstand a siege. As jackpots went, this was the real thing. This was winning the lottery.

  I got out of the car, making sure nobody was waiting for me with a boxing glove. But I didn’t think there would be. I’d been taught a good lesson. The serious harassment would come later, if I didn’t follow the advice I’d been given.

  Mourrabed had been put in the cooler. We’d found a kilo of heroin in packets, which was enough junk for a rainy day, and twelve thousand francs. Enough to send him away for quite a while. Possessing arms was going to complicate his case badly. Especially as I had my own ideas about their future use. Mourrabed had clammed up, and asked for his lawyer. He responded to all our questions with a shrug of the shoulders. But his arrogance had gone. He was in serious trouble, and he wasn’t sure if they’d be able to get him out of this. ‘They’ were the people who were using the cellar to store arms. The people who supplied him with drugs. Who may or may not be the same people.

  When I opened the door, the first thing I heard was Honorine laughing happily. Then her beautiful accent:

  “Hey, he must be two-timing me in paradise! I’ve won again!”

  All three of them were there—Honorine, Marie-Lou, and Babette—playing rummy on the terrace. In the background, Petrucciani was playing Estate. One of his first records, and not one of his best. The later ones were more proficient technically. But this one was full of raw emotion. I hadn’t listened to it since Rosa had left.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” I said as I walked to the table, feeling a bit annoyed.

  “Damn it, that’s the third game I’ve won!” Honorine said, clearly excited.

  I kissed each of them on the cheek in turn, picked up the bottle of Lagavulin that stood on the table between Marie-Lou and Babette, and went off to look for a glass.

  “There are stuffed peppers in the casserole. You can reheat them. Make sure you do it slowly. OK, Babette, you deal.”

  I smiled. Just a few days ago, this had been a bachelor’s house, and now three women were playing rummy in it, at ten minutes to midnight! Everything was tidy. The meal was ready. The dishes had been done. On the terrace, washing was drying. There in front of me was every man’s dream: a mother, a sister, and a whore!

  I heard them chuckling behind my back. They seemed to have established a kind of gentle rapport. My bad mood vanished as quickly as it had come. I was happy to see them there. I liked all three of them. A pity they couldn’t be combined in one woman. I’d have fallen in love with her.

  “Are you playing?” Marie-Lou asked me.

  10.

  IN WHICH THE WAY OTHER PEOPLE LOOK AT YOU IS A DEADLY WEAPON

  Honorine made stuffed peppers like no one else could. Romanian style, she called it. She’d fill the peppers with a stuffing of rice, sausage meat and a little beef, well salted and peppered, then place them in an earthenware casserole and cover them with water, add tomato coulis, thyme, bay and saw-wort, and let them cook on a very low flame, without covering. They tasted wonderful, especially if you poured a spoonful of crème fraîche over them at the last moment.

  I watched them playing rummy as I ate. To 51. When you have 51 points in your game, a tierce, fifty, a hundred, or four aces, you put your cards on the table. If another player has already folded, you can add to your game the cards he’s missing, which follow or precede his tierce or fifty. You can also take his rummy, the joker, which he may have put down to replace a missing card. The winner is the player who manages to get rid of all his cards.

  It’s a simple game, but it requires a certain amount of concentration if you want to win. Marie-Lou was relying on luck, and she was losing. The fight was between Honorine and Babette. Each was watching the cards the other was discarding. But Honorine had spent many afternoons playing rummy, and although she acted surprised whenever she won a game, I’d have put odds on her coming out on top. She was playing to win.

  As they played, I happened to glance at the washing drying on the line. In the middle of my shirts, underpants and socks, I noticed a pair of white panties and a bra. I looked at Marie-Lou. She’d put on one of my T-shirts. Her breasts showed beneath the cotton. My eyes traveled the length of her legs and thighs, up as far as her ass. I realized she was naked beneath the T-shirt, and started to get a hard-on. Marie-Lou caught me looking at her and guessed what I was thinking. She gave me a gorgeous smile, winked, and crossed her legs, slightly embarrassed.

  There followed an exchange of looks. From Babette to Marie-Lou. From Babette to me. From me to Babette. From Honorine to Babette, then to Marie-Lou. I felt ill at ease. I stood up and
went to take a shower. Under the water, I was still hard.

  Honorine left around half after midnight. She’d won five games, as against Babette’s four and Marie-Lou’s one. As she kissed me goodnight, I was sure she must be wondering what I was going to do with two women in my house.

  Marie-Lou announced that she was going to take a bath. I watched her as she went to the bathroom. I couldn’t help myself.

  “She’s really very beautiful,” Babette said, with a slight smile on her face.

  I nodded. “So are you.”

  It was true. She’d pulled her hair back in a pony tail. Her eyes seemed huge, and her mouth bigger. She was forty, but she was more than a match for any number of young cuties. Even Marie-Lou. Marie-Lou was young, and her beauty was obvious and immediate. Babette’s, on the other hand, was radiant. Enjoying life keeps you young, I thought.

  “Let it go,” she said, sticking her tongue out at me slightly.

  “Did she say something to you?”

  “We had time to get acquainted. It makes no difference. That girl has her head on her shoulders. Are you planning to help her get free of her pimp?”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything. I’m asking you.”

  “There’ll always be a pimp. Unless she wants to drop out. If she really wants it and she’s brave enough. It’s not so easy, you know. The girls are kept on a very tight rein.” I was talking in platitudes. Marie-Lou was a hooker. She’d turned up on my doorstep because she was fucked up, and because I wasn’t crazy and represented some kind of safety. I couldn’t see beyond that. Couldn’t see any farther than tomorrow, which was already a long way. “I have to find somewhere for her to crash. She can’t stay here. It’s not so safe around here anymore.”

  The air was mild, like a salt-laden caress. I gazed into the distance. The lapping of the waves evoked happy memories. I tried to distance myself from the threats hanging over me. I’d landed with both feet on dangerous ground, and what made it all the more dangerous was that I didn’t know which direction the blows would come from.