by Michel Quint
“There it is,” Hubert said, pointing to the building. “On the second floor. Believe me, old friend, you wouldn’t be able to afford it, not in a million years. Not on your salary!” Hubert lit a Gauloise cigarette. “The building looks like it held up. Let’s hope the soccer star slept at home last night.”
“In the arms of the beautiful Martine.”
“You did your homework. Are you trying to steal my job?”
Hubert’s explosive laugh accompanied them to the burglarized jewelry store, where he eyed the overturned display cases.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Yes, boss, but if we stop to check it out, we’ll lose time. There must be dozens throughout the city. Before tomorrow, the looting will be rampant. It’s going to get violent. Some people are capable of killing over a color TV, even if their houses were obliterated in the earthquake.”
“But this one is just within reach. Let’s have a look.”
Hubert put out his cigarette and entered the store, followed by his partner. It took only a few moments before they understood what had happened. After all, the earthquake hadn’t emptied out all the jewelry cases.
“Our people are going to have fun with burglaries like this,” Hubert observed. “Let’s get out of here. There’s nothing to see.”
“Muginello wasn’t necessarily the one behind the jewelry shop,” Alain said as they entered the apartment building and climbed the stairs.
“Agreed. It’s too risky for him. It smells to me like the work of amateurs.”
The two were now standing in front of Ettore’s apartment door. Breathing heavily from the ascent, Hubert took out his revolver and gave Alain a hard look.
“Starting now, let nothing surprise you. The end justifies the means. Ettore is not clean. We might have to force him into revealing his hand. We’re going to be looters, too! If we play by the rules, we won’t get anywhere. From now on, we’re outside the law!”
Alain held his captain’s gaze and said, “You can count on me, boss.”
Without bothering to ring the bell, Hubert kicked at the lock. The door swung open.
In an instant, the two men were in the entryway, sweeping their guns over the room. The apartment was empty, the damaged building filling it with cracking sounds. Hubert stepped over the bathroom’s fallen door and made his way into the bedroom. He was just starting his methodical search, emptying closets and drawers, when Alain yelled for him to join him in the living room.
Leaning against the pink marble mantelpiece, he pointed at the coffee table and said, “Eight glasses. Ettore had company.”
“Maybe last night.”
“No, earlier today!” Mercurey extended an open hand toward his boss. “I found this under the table.”
Hubert seized the tag by its red ribbon. “White gold—3620 francs. Ettore was behind the jewelry store. I’m impressed, but it was stupid of him to leave this. He must have been overwhelmed by all those jewels. He couldn’t help himself,” Hubert said as he placed the tag in his pocket. “This was a big job, and he left in a hurry. I bet he left other clues.”
“Looks like he had a case of gold fever,” Alain added.
“You keep looking around in here, I’ll check out his office.” Hubert made a face at the abundance of gilded bronze fixtures and velour drapery. “I feel like I’m searching the set of a Wagnerian opera. To think he calls himself a financial adviser on his taxes!”
After half an hour, they hadn’t found anything they could use, just legitimate papers. This despite the fact that they’d searched through every stick of furniture, flipped the pages of every book, and even knocked on the flooring to see if there were any special hiding places.
“Nada,” Hubert said to Alain. “What about you?”
“This is all I’ve got.”
“Are you kidding me? A cookbook? If you want to steal from the guy, choose something better.”
“There are some handwritten recipes.”
“So what? Ettore’s secret steak recipe isn’t going to serve him to us on a platter!”
“Some of the recipes seem weird. Look at this one for sautéed beef kidney: butter, shallots, kidney 62/1.5/01. That’s a strange measurement system.”
“That sounds more like a birthdate: 15 January, 1962.”
“Or a phone number: 62-15-01. That’s in Aix. Take a look at the rest: ‘Sautee the pieces of kidney in one and a half ounces of butter.’ Not sixty-two. ‘Add salt, pepper, and the finely chopped shallot. Cook the kidney for five minutes (Mélissa prefers eight minutes).’ I think 62-15-01 is Mélissa’s phone number. She must be one of Ettore’s girls.”
Hubert thumbed through the book, his brow wrinkled. Ettore had written out a dozen recipes. Nothing extraordinary.
“That’s absurd. Do you really think that Ettore is incapable of remembering a high earner’s phone number? Even if he were, surely he could look her up in the phone book. If anything, I bet it’s the number of some joint where he can get a hold of her, or even a public phone booth. That being said, you put your finger on something. We’ll test it out later. These numbers could be amounts or sums, or . . . Hold on a second.”
Alain, who’d been sitting in a red chair, quickly stood.
“In other recipes, he’s underlined some of the numbers with a pencil!” Hubert said. “Look: ‘Cow’s udder in verjuice,’ eighteen-ounce udder! And here: ‘Custard flan with prunes,’ eighty-five prunes. A recipe for Wednesday! What does that mean? We’ll look into all this later. I can’t believe he left it here for us to find!”
“We have to get to him soon, boss. When we catch up with him, we can use him to gain access to his superiors, and kill the drug trade in Aix.”
“I don’t think Ettore communicates with the Big Boss directly. He probably uses one of his girls as an intermediary, or several girls, but that would surprise me. It minimizes risk. He’s known as a pimp and she as a whore. That’s it, nothing else. A perfect illegal cover! He takes a cut on the heroin and the prostitution. Two sources of income. Well done, Ettore! We’ll test out this number. I can tell you this: Mélissa’s fellow prostitutes have already ratted on her. Her real name is Francine Sorbier. This number isn’t hers, I can guarantee you that. It has to be another contact in Ettore’s network. We have to get this verified with the phone company—if the earthquake hasn’t destroyed it. Then we’ll pay a little visit to the girl. Let’s go.”
“You have Mélissa’s address, boss?”
“Not only do I have her address, I know her!” Hubert said, laughing. “I may have a fondness for Trappist beer, but I’m not a monk!”
Downstairs, a gathering outside caught their attention. A fireman carrying a tarp was running toward the scene.
Hubert stopped a giddy-looking kid on the street. “What’s going on?”
“A dead woman,” the kid replied, delighted to have an audience. “Not from the earthquake, from a pistol. She’s weirdly—”
The two cops approached the fireman, brandishing their badges before looking under the tarp.
“Do you recognize her?” Hubert asked his partner.
“Martine de Martigues?”
“Yeah. Ettore is burning his bridges, or he wasn’t alone and someone just betrayed him. Eight glasses: one for him, one for Martine, and six for unknowns. We’ve got to get to the phone company.”
P.J. gazed at the silver stars shining in the shadows. A local artist had painted them on the dome-shaped, night-blue ceiling. Vaulted walnut doors sealed the tiled room. P.J. waited.
Carbasi’s Ford had taken them down a sun-speckled, cedar-lined lane. P.J. recalled the gray stone statues that stood at the gravel entrance. He was impressed by the mystery and luxuriousness of Le Jas de Baume, with its awnings and ivy-covered red tiles.
“Follow me, kiddo!”
Carbasi had stepped th
rough a set of polished double doors, in which P.J. had caught sight of his reflection, his mouth contorted in an effort to dislodge a piece of pastry that had gotten stuck in his teeth. Carbasi had led him into a dark, gilded room.
At first, P.J. hadn’t been able see anything besides his face in the pink marble Louis XV overmantel. Then, he heard breathing to his left. He turned, and what he saw made him starry-eyed.
Odile Rocher’s hair seemed never-ending. In fact, he couldn’t tell where it stopped and her diaphanous black dress began. The gossamer layers of her bodice were embroidered with silver birds. Her symmetrical face was painfully delicate. Odile was holding a cut crystal glass filled with thick wine, which she offered to P.J.
Turning her eyes to Carbasi, she said, “Goodness, he has long eyelashes.”
That day, P.J. got drunk on a few sips of port, which changed the direction of his life.
CHAPTER XV
Aix-en-Provence
Saturday, August 16, 7:20 p.m.
The old lady was sitting in the middle of the garden on a Henri II chair, her dark hands mindlessly rumpling her dark-blue apron. When she saw Lydie come through the gate at the side of the house, she didn’t move, but her lips started to tremble. Her sobbing didn’t start until later.
Lydie hugged her mother and gave her the news of Gérard’s death, without going into the details.
All the neighbors were gathered in the garden, forming a small tribe. The vegetable garden had become a kind of outdoor living room, since everyone was afraid to return to their fissured homes. Lydie’s mother’s house had been the hardest hit: her roof had fallen inward like a crumpled veil. Luckily, as was her habit, she’d risen early that morning to water her prized tomato plants. Each morning, she’d check the stakes, pick the ripe tomatoes—the love apples—and set up the watering hose. Then she’d go around distributing the morning’s harvest to the neighbors. At her age, she didn’t have much of an appetite. Her passion for horticulture had saved her life.
Now, in the aftermath of the quake, under the evening sky, Fausto’s kids were devouring pieces of toasted bread and jam like little ogres. Seated at the teak dining table, they played with the beautifully arranged vegetables. Two boys and three girls, from two to eight years old.
There were three other families present. The men were carrying furniture out of the houses and into the yard. The neighborhood was called the Bastide Blanche, and here the homes were solid, but the earthquake had shaken them fiercely. In a corner of the garden, under a holm oak, two women were crying, cursing the Virgin Mary’s cruelty for the zillionth time that day.
Still, there hadn’t been any deaths in Bastide Blanche. Lydie had been forced to describe Aix, how it was in ruins; she’d had to tell of the fires, the bodies, the sirens. The looting had already started, and people were going crazy, screaming blasphemies at God.
Everyone listened quietly, nodding. Aix was miles away and there were fewer temptations.
Lydie drank a cup of coffee and nibbled on some cold pizza. She told her mother that as soon as the roads were clear, she’d pick her up in her car and they’d head for the Alps. But no. The elderly woman didn’t want to hear it. Her place was here and she wouldn’t leave. Fausto, his wife, and the others would take care of her. In addition, he was a mason and could fix their houses. There was no need to worry.
Lydie was forced to accept her mother’s stubbornness. Before mounting her bicycle to rejoin P.J., the two women kissed farewell.
She was going to the Alps, although she couldn’t tell them exactly where P.J. would drop her. She promised to get in touch with them as soon as possible.
As she left the garden, Fausto waved, smiling at her with his eyes.
CHAPTER XVI
Aix-en-Provence
Saturday, August 16, 9:30 p.m.
A quarantine. Starting tomorrow morning, they would hang yellow flags all over town and tell everyone it was quarantined. Ideally, they would get all the dead bodies off the streets as soon as possible, before they all rotted and the rats surfaced and an epidemic broke out. For the moment, the emergency services were only taking care of the living. It was a bad idea to stick around and wait for more death.
P.J. feared the coming storm. The summer’s long drought was about to break; the air in the city was muggy, accentuating the sweet and nauseating scent of death. He knew that if he stayed much longer in this makeshift field hospital, he wouldn’t be able to leave. He absolutely had to get into the dealership before heading to Pierrevert.
Was there a way to find out if the van had survived the earthquake? It was a useless, fleeting thought, a kind of ghost of routines past.
The shadows were growing sharper, especially as people began to light fires to heat water and cook cans of food. A Mediterranean vitality was starting to reappear on people’s faces. P.J. was surprised. It felt almost as though they were playing at misfortune, like children dragged to a barbecue, playing house in the yard. P.J. didn’t understand how he had lost an entire day helping these people. The urge to help had been beyond his control.
Suddenly, he realized that Marc, the injured kid’s father, had been talking to him. P.J. hadn’t heard a word. When he saw the pack of Gauloises, he understood and accepted a cigarette. He took a couple of pleasant drags.
“In the end, we can count ourselves lucky,” Marc said.
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“It could be worse. My son will get better. His mother is worried. I’m not.”
P.J. looked at the kid. He was sleeping stretched out across his mother, who was cradling his head. An exhausted doctor had finally turned up. The boy was in less pain now, but they would have to get him to the hospital as soon as possible. The father had only a few pain and sleeping pills in his pocket.
Lydie had left just before the doctor’s arrival. Was that right? P.J. wasn’t sure, so he just waited for her there, sharing a provisional meal with his companions: some leftover bread with canned meat and beans.
He simply nodded pensively as Marc went on.
“We’ll survive. Is your wife coming back?”
“She’s not my wife.”
“Oh. Well, is she coming back?”
“I guess so.” P.J. didn’t want this guy to get the wrong idea, so he added, “She’s my neighbor. My wife lives north of here, away from the fault line. I was headed up there to be with her, and I offered to drop that woman with some relatives who have a home in that direction.”
It was vague, but the story seemed to satisfy his interlocutor. P.J. had told Lydie that he’d wait here until nine thirty or ten, at which point he’d go to the garage to find a working vehicle. It was just after nine forty-five. He had to get going. Above all, he hoped to avoid any bad encounters—and hoped that Lydie would, too.
Ever since she’d left—and this troubled him—he’d been thinking of her, of her determined face. The safety of his wife and kids had crossed his mind—of course it had—but he hadn’t thought of them very deeply. They were a goal, a kind of beacon. Although he and Lydie had crossed paths earlier in the day by chance, he missed her angular smile and the marine blue of her eyes. He wished she were there. Nothing more.
He stood and quickly explained to his entourage that he was going to meet Lydie and that he might return. The day had sped by so fast.
No one paid him any attention when he turned into the red asphalt alleyway that led to the city’s outskirts. It was nightfall, and the scenes of bulldozers pushing at ruins under yellow light were stunning. Groups of rescuers were still working under the mechanical lights, while survivors sat on the ruins and discussed the end of the world.
The engines kicked up clouds of dust, which tumbled over the ground, blown by a breeze that made P.J. shiver. He threw his cigarette to the pavement, the spark shooting like a star into the night.
As he neared the dealership’s garage, he saw two y
oung people helping to remove a body from the rubble. Under the sharp floodlights, the almost naked body looked gray and was streaked with dried blood.
P.J. was sad to see a gorgeous BMW 733i wedged under the parking garage’s ramp. It was always depressing to see a beautiful car totaled. He ran a hand over the damaged body, evaluating its wounds and fractures. Dead. Good for burial. He hoped the driver had made it out alive. He switched on the overhead light, which still worked. The brown stains on the passenger seat worried him. He knew the owner, Muginello, a customer he saw often. His girlfriend owned a Renault Le Car. She was a bad driver and her car always needed repairs. What had happened to Muginello? Had he survived the earthquake?
As he was closing the door to the dealership, to the right of the broken window, P.J. saw two men watching him. The tall bald one seemed to be asking a question. The other withdrew his hand from his pocket to stop him from going toward P.J.
P.J. had the feeling they would come into the garage as soon as the moment presented itself.
CHAPTER XVII
Aix-en-Provence
Saturday, August 16, 8:00 p.m.
A transistor radio gutted by a curious child, multiplied by a hundred: that is what the telephone switchboard resembled. Technicians and engineers were trying to reconnect what was needed for emergency phone calls. Wire-stripping pliers and field phones were being put to work in every corner of the new building that hadn’t been damaged.
Nobody paid any attention to Imbert and Mercurey, although one of the electricians did tell them that they had no time for the police and their dirty work.
While Imbert dug in his heels, took down names, and threatened the electricians, Mercurey managed to win over a terrified girl who’d been working when the earthquake hit. Since then, she’d remained on site, wandering around, crying. She didn’t dare go home, for fear of finding everyone missing—or worse. She had a young daughter and a husband. She was like a ghost haunting the building, a ghost with large black eyes and transparent skin. Imbert even wondered if she wasn’t the ghost of some operator awakened by the disaster.
