Total Chaos

by Jean-Claude Izzo

  “I know,” Babette said.

  “You know everything,” I replied, a touch annoyed.

  “No, not everything. But I know enough to be worried.”

  “That’s good of you. I’m sorry.”

  “As far as Marie-Lou is concerned, is that all there is?”

  I was embarrassed by this conversation. In spite of myself, I became aggressive. “What do you want to know? If I’m in love with a hooker? It’s a common male fantasy, isn’t it? Fall in love with a hooker, and take her away from her pimp. Become her pimp. Have her just to yourself, as a sex object...” I suddenly felt very weary, as if I was at the end of my tether. “I haven’t yet found the love of my life. Maybe she doesn’t exist.”

  “I only have a studio apartment. You know that.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll find something.”

  Babette took an envelope from her bag, opened it, and handed me a photograph. “The reason I came was to show you this.”

  Several men around a table, in a restaurant. I knew one of them. Morvan. I swallowed.

  “The one on the right is Joseph Poli. Very ambitious. He’s looking to be Zucca’s successor. I’m certain the killers at the Opéra were his men. He’s a friend of Jacky Le Mat. He took part in the Saint-Paul-de-Vence heist in 81.”

  I remembered it. Seven million items of jewelry stolen. Jacky Le Mat had been brought in for questioning, but had to be released after the main witness retracted.

  “The man standing,” Babette went on, “is his brother, Émile. Specializes in protection. Slot machines, discos. Looks laid back, but he’s as hard-boiled as they come.”

  “Are they lining Morvan’s pockets?”

  “The guy on the left is Luc Wepler,” she continued, ignoring my question.

  Her description of him sent a shiver down my spine. Wepler was born in Algeria. He joined the paras very young, and soon became an active member of the OAS. In 65, he was in Tixier-Vignancourt’s security team. When his man did so badly in the election, he turned away from official activism. He went back to the paras, then became a mercenary. Fought in Rhodesia, in the Comoros, and Chad. In 74, he was in Cambodia, as a military advisor to the Americans fighting the Khmer Rouge. After that, Angola, South Africa, Benin. He fought alongside Bechir Jemayel’s falangists in Lebanon.

  “Interesting,” I said, imagining a face to face talk with him.

  “Since 90, he’s been active in the National Front. With his commando background, he prefers to work in the shadows. Not many people in Marseilles know him. On one side, you’ve got the sympathizers. Victims of the economic downturn, unemployed workers, people who feel let down by the Socialists or the Communists. They’re attracted by the National Front’s radical ideas. But on the other side, you’ve got the militants. The really determined ones. Backgrounds in the Oeuvre Française, the GUD, the Anti-Communist Front. They’re organized into action cells, and they’re spoiling for a fight. Wepler deals with them. He has the reputation of being a good trainer of young people. Which means that you do it the way he wants, or you’re out.”

  I couldn’t take my eyes off the photo. Wepler’s ice-cold, electric blue eyes were hypnotic. I’d known guys like him in Djibouti. Cold-blooded killers. The whores of imperialism. Its lost children. Let loose in the world, full of hatred for having been the ‘cuckolds of history,’ as Garel, my chief warrant officer, had said one day.

  Then I noticed another familiar face. In the background, on the right. At another table. Toni. The handsome Toni.

  “Do you know this one?”

  “No.”

  “I made his acquaintance this evening.”

  I told her how and why I’d met him. She grimaced. “That’s bad. The photo was taken at a dinner for the real fanatics. The ones who are even more rabid than the usual National Front militants.”

  “You mean the Poli brothers have turned fascist?”

  She shrugged. “They get together for a meal and a laugh and sing Nazi songs. Like Chez Jenny in Paris, you know. It doesn’t prove anything. But there’s clearly a business arrangement in there somewhere. The Poli brothers must be getting something out it. I don’t see why else they’d bother with these people. But there is a link. Morvan. Wepler trained him. In Algeria, First Parachute regiment. After 68, Morvan was a militant in the Anti-Communist Front, where he became head of the Action Group. That was when he met Wepler again and they became best buddies...” She looked at me and smiled, confident she was about to make an impression. “And he married the sister of the Poli brothers.”

  I whistled between my teeth. “anymore surprises like that?”

  “Batisti.”

  He was in the foreground of the photo, but with his back to the camera. I hadn’t even noticed him.

  “Batisti,” I repeated, idiotically. “Of course. So he’s mixed up with these people, too?”

  “His daughter Simone is Émile Poli’s wife.”

  “The family, right?”

  “The family on one side, everyone else on the other. That’s what the Mafia’s all about. Guérini was the same. Zucca married a cousin of Volgro, the Neapolitan. It was when there was no family in charge in Marseilles that things fell apart here. Zucca realized that. So he joined a family.”

  “La Nuova famiglia,” I said with a bitter smile. “New family, same old shit.”

  Marie-Lou came back, her body wrapped in a big terry towel. We’d almost forgotten about her. Her appearance was a breath of fresh air. She looked at us as if we were conspirators, then lit a cigarette, poured us two large glasses of Lagavulin, and went back inside. Soon after, we heard Astor Piazzolla on bandoneon, followed by Gerry Mulligan’s saxophone. One of the finest musical encounters of the last fifteen years. Buenos Aires, twenty years after.

  The pieces of a puzzle lay scattered in front of me. Now all I had to do was put them together. Ugo and Zucca with Morvan. Al Dakhil and his bodyguards with Morvan and Toni. Leila with Toni and the two killers. But the pieces didn’t fit. And what was Batisti’s part in all this?

  “Who’s this?” I asked, pointing to a distinguished-looking man to the right of Joseph Poli.

  “No idea.”

  “Where is this restaurant?”

  “The Auberge des Restanques. Just outside Aix, on the way to Vauvenargues.”

  The warning lights went on instantly in my head. I forgot about Ugo, and switched to Leila. “That’s not far from where Leila’s body was found.”

  “What’s the connection?”

  “That’s what I’m wondering.”

  “Do you believe in coincidence?”

  “I don’t believe in anything.”

  I’d walked Babette to her car, after making sure there was no immediate danger on the street. No car or motorbike had set off after her. I’d waited outside a few more minutes. By the time I’d come back inside, I felt reassured.

  “Be careful,” she’d said, stroking the back of my neck.

  I’d taken her in my arms. “I can’t turn back, Babette. I don’t know where it’s going to lead me. But I’m going on. I’ve never had an aim in my life. Now I have one. It may not be worth much, but it’s mine.”

  I loved the gleam in her eyes when she freed herself from me. “The only aim in life is to stay alive.”

  “That’s what I say.”

  Now I had to face Marie-Lou. I’d been hoping that Babette would stay. They could have slept in my bed, and I’d have slept on the couch. But Babette had replied that I was a big boy now, and I’d be fine on the couch, even if she wasn’t there.

  Marie-Lou was holding the photo. “Who are these guys?”

  “Rich guys with ugly minds! All crooks, if you really want to know.”

  “Are you after them?”

  “I might be.”

  I took the photo from her and had another look at it. It had b
een taken three months ago. It was a Sunday, a day when Les Restanques was usually closed. Babette had been given the photo by a journalist on Le Méridional who’d been a guest at the party. She was going to try to find out more about the participants, especially what the Poli brothers, Morvan and Wepler were cooking up.

  Marie-Lou had sat down on the couch, her legs folded under her. She looked up at me. The marks on her skin were fading.

  “You want me to go, right?”

  I showed her the bottle of Lagavulin. She nodded. I filled two glasses and gave her one.

  “I can’t explain it all to you, Marie-Lou. I’m involved in something ugly. You saw what happened last night. Things are going to get complicated. It’s too risky to stay here. These guys don’t fool around,” I said, thinking of the faces of Morvan and Wepler.

  She kept looking at me. I really wanted her. I wanted to throw myself on her and have her right there and then, on the floor. It was the easiest way to avoid talking. I didn’t think she’d want me to do that, so I didn’t move.

  “I realized that. What am I to you?”

  “A hooker... But I really like you.”

  “Bastard!” She threw her glass at me. I’d known it was coming and dodged. The glass smashed on the tiles. Marie-Lou didn’t move.

  “Do you want another glass?”

  “Yes, please.”

  I poured her another glass, and sat down next to her. The hardest part was over.

  “Do you want to leave your pimp?”

  “This life is the only thing I know.”

  “I wish you’d do something else.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what? Become a cashier at Prisunic?”

  “Why not? My partner’s daughter does that. She’s your age, or just about.”

  “That’s hell on earth!”

  “And getting laid by guys you don’t even know is better, is it?”

  She stared at the bottom of her glass in silence, just like the other night when I’d met her at O’Stop.

  “Were you thinking about it before this happened?”

  “I’ve lost count, you know. I can’t do it anymore. Fuck all these guys. That’s why I got beaten up.”

  “I thought it was because of me.”

  “You were just the pretext.”

  By the time we finished talking, day was breaking. The story of Marie-Lou was the story of all the Marie-Lous in the world. Give or take a detail or two. Starting with her unemployed father raping her, while Mom was out working as a cleaning woman to support the family. Her brothers who didn’t give a damn, because she was only a girl. Except when they saw her going out with a white guy, or, worse still, an Arab. Getting beaten for the slightest thing. Other kids are given candy, poor kids get beaten.

  Marie-Lou had run away at seventeen. One evening after school. Alone, because her boyfriend, a classmate, had chickened out. So it was bye-bye, Pierrot. And farewell, La Garenne-Colombes. She headed South. The truck driver who picked her up was on his way to Rome.

  “It was on the way back that I realized I’d end up a hooker. He dumped me in Lyons with five hundred francs. His wife and kids were waiting for him. He’d fucked me for more than that, but what the hell, I’d liked it! He could have screwed me for nothing. He was the first, he wasn’t the worst.

  “After that, all the guys I met had one thing on their minds. It usually lasted a week. In their little minds, I was too beautiful to ever become a respectable woman. I guess it kind of scared them that I’m such a good lay. Or else they saw me as the hooker I was going to be. What do you think?”

  “I think the way other people look at you can be a deadly weapon.”

  “You’re a good talker,” she said, wearily. “But couldn’t you love a girl like me, huh?”

  “All the women I ever loved left me.”

  “I could stay. I’ve got nothing to lose.”

  Her words stunned me. She was sincere. She was opening up to me, giving herself.

  “I couldn’t stand to be loved by a woman who has nothing to lose. That’s what love is, the possibility of losing.”

  “You’re sick, Fabio, you know that? I don’t think you’re very happy.”

  “But I don’t boast about it!”

  I laughed, but she didn’t. She looked at me, and there seemed to be sadness in her eyes. I didn’t know if she was sad for herself or for me. Her lips touched mine. She smelled of cashew oil.

  “I’m going to bed,” she said. “I think that’s best, don’t you?”

  “I guess so,” I heard myself saying, thinking it was too late to throw myself on her. And that made me smile.

  “You know something?” she said, as she stood up. “I know one of the guys in that photo.” She picked up the photo from the floor and pointed at a man sitting next to Toni. “That’s my pimp. Raoul Farge.”

  “Shit!”

  Even the best couch is always uncomfortable. It’s a place you only sleep if you have to, because someone else is using your bed. I hadn’t slept on mine since the last night Rosa spent here.

  We’d talked and drunk till dawn, hoping once again to save our relationship. It wasn’t our love that was in question. It was her and me. Me more than her. I refused to satisfy her true desire: to have a child. I couldn’t give her any logical argument. I was simply a prisoner of my own life.

  Clara, the only woman I’d ever made pregnant—without intending to, admittedly—had had an abortion without telling me. I wasn’t reliable, she yelled at me, after she’d done it, as a way of justifying her decision. I was too interested in women. I loved them too much. I was unfaithful just looking at them. I couldn’t be trusted. I was a lover. I’d never be a husband. Let alone a father. That had put an end to our relationship, obviously. I thought I’d killed the father in me, but maybe he was only taking a nap.

  I loved Rosa. An angel’s face surrounded by a mass of curly hair, chestnut shading to red. She had a magnificent, disarming smile, almost always slightly sad. It was her smile that first drew me to her. I could think about her now without it hurting. It wasn’t so much that that I’d lost interest in her, as that she’d become unreal to me. But it had taken me a long time to get over her, to forget her body. When we were together, I just had to close my eyes and I wanted her. Images of her had obsessed me. I often wondered if I’d want her just as much if she suddenly showed up again without warning. I still didn’t know.

  Not true. I did know. Ever since I’d slept with Lole. You couldn’t get over loving Lole. It wasn’t a question of beauty. Rosa had a magnificent body, full of subtle curves and lines. Everything about her, the slightest gesture, was sensual. Lole was thinner, more willowy. Ethereal, even in the way she walked. She resembled Gradiva in the Pompeii frescoes. She seemed hardly to touch the ground. Making love to her was like letting yourself be carried away on a journey. She transported you. And, when you came, you didn’t feel as if you’d lost something, but as if you’d found something.

  That was what I’d felt, even though, in the moments that had followed, I’d completely blown it. One night at les Goudes, Manu had said: “Shit, why is it that when you come, it never lasts?” We hadn’t known what to answer. But with Lole, something did last.

  Ever since, I’d been living with what lasted. My one desire was to find her, to see her again. Even though I’d been refusing to admit it for three months. Even though I had no illusions. I could still feel her fingers on my skin like fire. My cheeks were still red from the shame. Since Lole, there’d been only Marie-Lou. With her, when I came it was like losing myself. An act of despair. It was despair that drove you to sleep with hookers. But Marie-Lou deserved better.

  I changed position. I was sure I wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. I was torn between the persistent desire to see Lole again and the repressed desire to sleep with Marie-Lou. What did her pimp have to do with all this? Leila�
�s death was like a stone cast into water, sending ripples in all directions, and cops, gangsters and fascists were moving within those ripples. And Raoul Farge, who was using Mourrabed’s cellar to store enough weaponry to attack the Bank of France.

  Shit! What were all those weapons intended for? An interesting thought suddenly occurred to me, but the last mouthful of Lagavulin put a stop to further reflection. I didn’t have time to look at the clock. When the alarm went off, I didn’t even feel as if I’d closed my eyes.

  Marie-Lou must have been fighting monsters all night. The pillows had been rolled into balls, and the sheets were crumpled where she’d hugged them to her. She was sleeping on top of the sheet, on her stomach, with her head turned away. I couldn’t see her face. I could only see her body. I felt a bit stupid, standing there with the cups of coffee and the croissants.

  I’d swum for a good half hour. It cleared my lungs of all the cigarettes I’d been smoking. I felt my muscles tense as if they were about to burst. I swam straight ahead, beyond the sea wall. I didn’t enjoy it. I forced myself on, and only stopped when I felt a shooting pain in my stomach that reminded me of the blows I’d received. The memory of the pain changed to fear, then panic. For a second, I thought I was going to drown.

  I took a shower, and the feel of the lukewarm water on my body finally calmed me down. I drank an orange juice, then went out to buy croissants. I stopped off at Fonfon’s, to grab a coffee and read the paper. Despite pressure from some of his customers, the only papers he kept were Le Provençal and La Marseillaise. Not Le Méridional. Fonfon deserved my custom.

  There’d been a big raid last night. Several squads had taken part, including Auch’s. It had been a methodical raid, covering the three main areas: bars, brothels, and night clubs. All the trouble spots had been hit: Place d’Aix, Cours Belzunce, Place de l’Opéra, Cours Julien, La Plaine and even Place Thiars. More than sixty people taken in for questioning, all of them Arabs without the right papers. A few prostitutes. A few punks. But no major gangsters. Not even a minor gangster. The captains of the squads involved had refused to make any comment, but the journalist implied that this kind of operation might be repeated. Marseilles’ night life had to be cleaned up.