A Sun for the Dying

by Jean-Claude Izzo

  “We haven’t told you yet,” Rico began.

  After drinking a few pastis in a café on Grand’Rue, the two of them didn’t even have a hundred francs left between them.

  “We’ll have to do something to get back on our feet again,” Dédé had said.

  “I’m too old for that now, Dédé. If things go bad, I can’t run. I’d get nabbed in no time.”

  But Dédé had finally managed to persuade Rico. I don’t think he’d needed much persuading. Listening to Rico telling me about their adventure, it was obvious he hadn’t been able to resist the pleasure—and I mean pleasure—of scaring himself. Of playing the thief. One last time. You see, there wasn’t a shred of violence in him. Nor a shred of hatred or nastiness, in spite of all he’d been through. Holdups weren’t his thing. He was a good man, and always had been.

  Dédé had done quite a bit of walking in the center of town and had spotted a good ATM machine on Place Sadi-Carnot. On Rue de la République, halfway between the Vieux-Port and La Joliette.

  “After eight o’clock there’s hardly anyone around. But lots of guys pull up in cars. And they don’t waste their time looking for a parking space . . . You just have to be patient . . . As usual.”

  It was exactly eight by the Tax Office clock when they took up position near the bank. They sat down on the steps in front of an apartment building, a fifth of a gallon of wine in front of them, and smoked as they waited.

  “A couple of bums aren’t going to worry anyone,” Dédé said. “It’s actually reassuring.”

  After just fifteen minutes, they were approached by two black guys, who had been hanging around on the sidewalk for a while.

  “Hey, you guys!” one of them growled, “go sleep it off somewhere else. We’re working here! And you two stick out like a sore thumb.”

  “Just take off, O.K.?” the other one said.

  “O.K., O.K.,” Dédé moaned.

  They stood up and shuffled across the street.

  “That’s it, Dédé. That ATM must be in the Michelin guide!”

  “Piss artists!”

  “No, we’re doing O.K.”

  At that moment, a car stopped, a black Renault Clio. Dédé and Rico sat down, curious to see how the black guys would go about it. A girl, a brunette with glasses, was at the wheel. The man, a puny-looking young guy in a leather jacket, walked calmly toward the ATM.

  “Shit, those two would have been perfect for us!”

  In an instant, the black guys had come up behind the young guy. He turned around, with a huge gun in his hand.

  “Police!” he yelled. “Don’t move!”

  The other black guy took off.

  “Police!” the lady cop cried behind him. “Stay where you are!”

  At that moment, a siren echoed on the street, and a police car arrived, cornering the fugitive.

  Rico and Dédé almost felt like applauding.

  “Better than a TV show,” Rico said with a laugh.

  “Yeah, the cops here are really good.”

  Rico stood up. “That bank must be in the police Michelin too!” He knocked back a swig of wine, watched the cops driving away, then passed the bottle to Dédé. “Well, now we just have to go home, like the idiots we are.”

  “Are you kidding? This is perfect!”

  “Perfect how?”

  “The cops aren’t going to come by twice. Those two assholes must have been working this patch for a while, so obviously they got picked up. We’re just passing through, right?”

  “Dédé, you’re completely crazy!”

  “No, I’m thirsty. It’ll be fine, trust me.”

  And they went back to their places near the ATM, the bottle of wine in front of them. Three cars stopped. A guy. Another guy. Then a guy and a girl.

  Rico sighed. “There won’t be anything left.”

  He was starting to feel tired. I don’t think he was enjoying the game anymore.

  “That one,” Dédé said suddenly.

  It was a brand new white Opel. With a couple inside.

  “Keep cool, Rico. And we do what we agreed, O.K.?”

  Rico nodded.

  A young woman got out. A blonde. Her ass in a pair of tight-fitting black jeans. She left the car door open. Rico and Dédé approached.

  “Have you got a hundred francs?” Dédé asked the young woman.

  “No,” she replied curtly.

  Rico got in the car. “My pal has a knife. And he’s crazy. If you move, if you scream, you can say goodbye to your Swedish girlfriend.”

  The man was the handsome older guy type, with silver temples and a small mustache. Lots of rings on his fingers. His hands on the wheel were shaking.

  “Bingo!” Dédé cried.

  He opened the rear door and pushed the girl inside. The smell of lavender filled the car.

  “We live just around the corner,” Dédé said. “Tell monsieur the way.”

  “Let us go,” the guy whined.

  “It isn’t far,” Rico said. “Do you know Rue Sainte-Françoise?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, I don’t suppose it’s a neighborhood you spend much time in. Go on, I’ll direct you.”

  On Rue de l’Évêché, they drove past the police station.

  “That’s the cop house,” Rico joked, “but they’re not expecting us this evening.”

  On Place des Treize-Cantons, at the top of Rue Sainte-Françoise, Rico asked the guy to turn right. Onto a very narrow, one-way street. Rue du Petit-Puis. He was so freaked out, it took him two attempts to turn the corner.

  “Stop,” Rico said. “This is where we get off. You keep straight on. Without stopping. After this, it’s downhill all the way, until you get back to civilization.”

  The guy drove off without asking any questions. Without even letting his chick get back in the front seat. Rico and Dédé took the steps behind them to get back to Rue de l’Évêché. Then they walked nice and slowly to Place de la Joliette. The pizza stand could have been waiting specially for them. As for the Chinese grocery, it was open day and night.

  They’d gotten through four bottles of wine during the story. Two each. I was on beer. But I was taking it easy. Although I’d slept, the effects of the joint hadn’t worn off. I was still numb. I still felt as if I was floating.

  My nose felt itchy.

  “What do you say?” Rico asked me.

  “There are some Nikes at Go Sport,” I drawled. “They’re fantastic. Maybe I can have a little something.”

  My nose really itched.

  When it came down to it, I preferred the company of Vanessa. My beautiful Colombian.

  24.

  SOMETIMES, LIFE IS REALLY MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN DREAMS

  They were singing at the tops of their voices. Especially Dédé, who sang in a loud, solemn voice. Rico was coughing fit to burst. A cough he tried to soothe with little gulps of whisky. They’d obviously finished the last two bottles of wine during my nap.

  They were laughing and shouting out the names of songs, challenging each other. Often they only remembered the chorus, which they sang quickly before moving on to the next one.

  What about this one by Charles Aznavour?

  Or this one by Jacques Brel?

  “Jeff,” Dédé said. “Do you remember Jeff? Titi really liked that one!”

  “Cheers, Titi!”

  No, Jeff, you’re not alone . . .

  “Those fucking bastards, when I think about it . . .”

  “Drop it, Dédé, please . . .”

  I’d been watching them for a few minutes, lying on the mattress. I didn’t like the way Dédé sang. He shouted, as if the words didn’t mean anything.

  “What about this one by Julien Clerc?” Rico said.

  You don’t like it, I know, that she’s mine

  But she’s . . .

  And Dédé screamed:

  Mine, all mine . . .

  I sat up slowly. My head was like the base for a squadron of helicopters! The blades
turned and turned, and the din was incredible.

  “You’re making a hell of a lot of noise!”

  “We’re having a party, having a party,” Dédé sang.

  “Are you all right?” Rico asked me.

  He held out the bottle of whisky. I refused, making a face. I’d have happily drunk Niagara Falls. My mouth felt thick and coated, and my tongue must have trebled in size.

  “What about this one?” Dédé said.

  The girl from Cadiz has those velvety eyes . . .

  Rico took it up. “The girl from Cadiz, da-da-dum, da-da-dum.”

  “Shit, man! Luis Mariano! That’s all we listened to in my house! Every fucking Sunday! Georges Guétary . . . and that woman . . . What was her name? Gloria Lasso, that was it. Gloria Lasso.”

  “I think I’d have preferred that. My dad was more into Strauss waltzes, strings, all that kind of stuff! La-da-da-da-dum, da-dum, da-dum . . .”

  I felt a bit like a Martian. I didn’t know any of the singers they were talking about. Given the state they were in, they’d be all night before they ran out of stock!

  In the end, I opened another beer. I was starting to like it!

  “How about Renaud?” Dédé said.

  “Renaud! I’d forgotten all about him! Shit, I really liked him.”

  “At least he’s on our side. He sings about the street.”

  “Do you remember ‘The Mistral blows’?”

  “How does it go?”

  And Rico started singing, softly, in a weak, broken voice:

  Sitting down here on this bench

  Spending five minutes with you

  Watching the sun going down

  Recalling the good times we knew

  They’re gone, but I don’t give a damn

  We were the good guys, me and you . . .

  I looked at Rico. Tears were welling up in his eyes.

  Tears of drunkenness.

  Tears of love.

  “And the mistral blows,” Dédé shouted.

  Rico took a long swig of whisky, put his arm around my shoulders, then sang, even more softly:

  Love life, what more can I say

  Though time sweeps everything away

  And the laughter of children goes,

  And the mistral blows

  And the mistral blows

  There was silence.

  Dédé lit a cigarette. “Shit, Rico, you’re going to make us cry.”

  Rico ignored him. He put his dirty index finger on my nose, and, looking me straight in the eyes, repeated:

  . . . and the mistral blows . . .

  He closed his eyes. I felt a knot in my stomach. Rico was leaving. He was going farther and farther away. From me, from us. From himself. And I couldn’t stop him. Every word echoed in my head like a word of farewell.

  It was the first night I’d spent in his crash pad. I’d have preferred us to be alone. Dédé’s presence was like a weight on us.

  Like a weight on Rico.

  Like death, I thought. That’s exactly what I thought. How strange things are sometimes.

  At that moment, Dédé started rummaging in his bag.

  “By the way, I forgot to show you this.”

  He handed Rico a press cutting. A cruel smile hovered on his lips.

  “What is it?”

  “I cut it out of Ouest-France.”

  I went behind Rico and read the cutting over his shoulder.

  “Rennes: Woman Raped and Killed in Her Own Home,” the headline said. It dated from five weeks earlier.

  Rico started shaking.

  The woman was his wife.

  Sophie.

  She had been attacked when she came home from her daily jog in Thabor Park, between noon and 2 P.M. Her naked body had been found by her husband in the living room of their house on Rue de Fougeres. That was what the journalist reported.

  Rico read the article a second time, more slowly. As if to convince himself that what he was reading had really happened.

  According to the police, the journalist went on, the prime suspect was the victim’s former husband, currently “of no fixed abode.” According to friends, he had come to Rennes several times and had threatened her right outside her son’s school. Several witnesses claimed to have seen him prowling around the house recently.

  He was described as “an extremely jealous man, and a violent alcoholic.”

  Rico dropped the cutting. He looked at Dédé.

  “She was a bitch, wasn’t she? That’s what you always said.”

  Rico punched him full in the face. On the nose. With a speed and strength that took us by surprise.

  “Shit, man! You’re crazy!”

  Dédé’s nose started gushing blood. His shirt was soon covered in it.

  “Asshole! See what you did?”

  Rico jumped on him, but he had exhausted all his energy, all his violence, in that single punch. He collapsed onto Dédé, weeping.

  “And what about my son? Eh? Did you think about my son? He already lost his father. Now he’s lost his mother.”

  Dédé shoved Rico away. They rolled on the mattress.

  “Julien,” Rico started sobbing.

  There was an old pickax handle against the wall, and I grabbed it. If that bastard touched Rico, I’d murder him.

  “You big crybaby,” Dédé said, wiping his nose with a dirty cloth. “You wanted to strangle the bitch, didn’t you? You were always saying that. But you never had the guts. You never had the guts to do anything in your life. That’s why she dumped you.”

  “Get out,” was all Rico said.

  Dédé stood up.

  So did I.

  The pickax handle in my hand. Ready to strike.

  We looked at each other.

  Hate against hate.

  If he’d been capable of something as bad as that, I told myself, he could easily have slept with Anne, the wife of Félix’s boss. It might not have been true, but it suited me to think it was. And if it was true, it must have sickened Félix. Because he liked Anne. That was why he’d left.

  Far from Dédé.

  Far from everyone.

  I kept telling myself that, as I gripped the pickax handle.

  I took a step toward Dédé. “Get out of here, we said.”

  He picked up his bag. At the door, he turned and said to Rico, “I’m not sorry I did it . . .”

  “Get out of here,” I cried, raising the pickax handle.

  “She was the best piece of ass I ever had.”

  And his laughter echoed along the gallery.

  Rico was prostrate.

  I went to him. “It’s all right, Rico. He’s gone. We can sleep now, if you want.”

  I handed him the bottle of whisky, and he took a good swig.

  “It’s all right, Rico.”

  “I need a smoke . . .”

  I lit a cigarette, and put it in his mouth. He was shaking.

  “What’s Julien going to do? He’s all alone.”

  “He isn’t all alone.”

  The sadness in his eyes terrified me.

  “I can’t even go see him anymore.”

  “He isn’t alone . . .”

  He looked at me again. I lowered my head. I couldn’t stand the despair deep in his eyes. Rico was crumbling inside. He would soon be nothing but dust. A heap of dust.

  I took the plunge. “There’s that guy who lived with her. Alain. He’ll take care of Julien. He isn’t his father, he isn’t you, but he loves him, doesn’t he? Don’t you think so?”

  Rico’s raised his trembling hand to his mouth and dragged on his cigarette. The ash fell on his black parka.

  “Rico?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She went to live with the guy, didn’t she? Because she loved him. And loving someone means trusting them, right?”

  He stubbed out his cigarette, lay down on the mattress, and closed his eyes.

  “Rico? Are you listening?”

  He moved his head slightly.

&nb
sp; “She trusted him, Rico.” I lay down next to him, and whispered in his ear, “Trust him too. Julien isn’t alone.”

  Then I picked up the teddy bear, and put it in Rico’s arms. He hugged it.

  My eyes were closing.

  Some time during the night, Rico turned to me. I felt his hand stroking my hair, gently. Like my father used to.

  “I love you, boy,” he murmured.

  It was like a dream, those words, that hand on my hair. I was dreaming, I told myself. Because it had to be a dream, those words, that hand in my hair.

  “Daddy,” I murmured.

  I should have guessed it wasn’t a dream.

  I should have known that, when Rico’s lips came to rest on my forehead and I felt his foul, damp breath on my face.

  I should have woken up, instead of hugging the teddy bear.

  I thought it was a dream.

  We always think dreams are more beautiful than real life.

  25.

  ONE LAST SONG, AND WAITING, WAITING . . .

  I jumped.

  A noise. Like a heavy door closing. Then silence. A heavy silence. A damp silence. And that strong, greasy stench rising from the ground.

  I opened my eyes in the darkness.

  Two red eyes were staring at me.

  The rat.

  I leaped to my feet. Hugging the teddy bear to me.

  “Rico!”

  The rat didn’t move. Neither did Rico.

  “Rico!”

  My hand groped for his back, his shoulder. To shake him. Wake him. Ask him to chase away the rat. I didn’t dare move. Fear.

  Rico.

  Rico wasn’t there anymore.

  The door closing again.

  I held the teddy bear even tighter.

  “Don’t be afraid, Zineb. It’s only a rat.”

  I made a gesture in the darkness. A gesture of the hand. The rat didn’t move. I had the impression his red eyes were getting bigger. The rat was becoming enormous. A wolf rat. A lion rat. An elephant rat.

  “It’ll be all right, Zineb! It’ll be all right.”