'I admire your self-belief. But I can't wholly believe that you simply walk all night or spend time writing in a twenty-four-hour café. Which café might that be, by the way?'
'I use several,' I said, wondering if he could hear the lie in my voice.
'So which ones exactly?'
'There's this place in Les Halles called Le Tambour. And there's also the Mabillon on the boulevard Saint- Germain—'
'That's a long way from your quartier.'
'Half an hour on foot.'
'If you walk fast.'
'All right, forty-five minutes if you're limping. As I told you, I like to wander at night.'
'You're a flâneur ?'
'Absolutely.'
'Might you also be a flâneur who holds down a full-time job?'
'I don't have a carte de séjour.'
'That has never stopped the vast majority of immigrés from working here. Professionally speaking, I don't care at all if you are holding down illegal employment or not. I am investigating a murder. As you are "of interest" to us, I simply want to find out your whereabouts on the night of the murder.'
'As I said, I was—'
'Yes, yes, strolling the streets of Paris like Gene Kelly.
May I say that I don't believe you. I know you are hiding something. Clarity, monsieur, is essential now.'
Why didn't I tell him about the all-night job? Because I might also be implicated in whatever was going on downstairs.
And it still wouldn't clear me of suspicion in the death of Omar. Who would vouch for me being in fulltime employment?
Nobody.
'I am hiding nothing, Inspector.'
His lips tightened. He tapped two fingers on the desk. He reached for the phone. He swiveled around in his chair and spoke in a low voice. Then he hung up and swiveled back toward me.
'You are free to go, monsieur. But I must inform you that we will be keeping your passport . . . and that I advise you not to leave Paris.'
'I'm going nowhere.'
'We'll see about that.'
Sixteen
THEY'RE FOLLOWING ME.
Now I was sure of this. Just as I was also sure that it was only a matter of time before they found out where I worked at night, and raided the place.
Someone's on your tail.
Had an innocent passer-by seen me on the street, he would have thought, That man is mad. Because I had developed the paranoid habit of turning around every two minutes or so to see who was behind me. This was no neurotic knee-jerk response that only lasted a few hours after I was allowed to leave the commissariat de police. No, this became a full-blown tic – and one which was difficult to control. Every two minutes – one hundred and twenty seconds exactly (I was counting it down in my head) – I had to spin around and try to surprise the gumshoe who was shadowing me.
But no one was ever there.
That's because they know how to make themselves vanish . . . to duck into a doorway as soon as they see you twirling around.
Several times, this abrupt pirouette nearly landed me into trouble. An elderly African woman – using a walker to help her negotiate the Faubourg Saint-Martin – screamed when I spun around. I apologized profusely, but she still glared at me as if I was delusional. The second time, the victims were two young toughs. They were both around twenty, of Arab origin, dressed in tight leather jackets and wearing cheap sunglasses. Their initial shock was quickly replaced by umbrage and aggression. Immediately they grabbed me and shoved me into a doorway.
'What you fucking doing?' one of them hissed.
'I thought you were the cops.'
'Stop talking shit,' the other said. 'You thought we were following you, right?'
'I honestly didn't think—'
'Racist asshole, thinks we're a couple of sand niggers, wanting to jump him for his cheap watch.'
'I meant no disrespect. I—'
'Yes, you did,' the first said, then spat on me. Simultaneously the other guy shoved me hard, knocking me off my feet.
'You do that again to us,' he said, 'we cut you the next times.'
But as soon as I had picked myself up and wiped that man's spittle from my jacket and headed off down the street, I still found myself turning around every two minutes.
I'm sure they're there. I'm sure they're watching me at all times.
When I left the commissariat, I decided to do what I always do whenever life overwhelms me: I hid in a movie. (Come to think of it, I hide in a movie even if I am finding things moderately cope-able.) There was a Clint Eastwood festival at the Action Écoles – so I caught The Beguiled (Wounded Civil War veteran ends up in a house of spinster women, starts sleeping his way through them, and pays a horrible price for his sexual profligacy . . . I must have been insane to have chosen this movie – especially as I had seen it twenty years earlier and therefore vaguely remembered what I was letting myself in for.)
Afterward, it was time for work. Now I turned around every minute, reducing this to thirty seconds as I approached the alleyway and the steel door, behind which . . .
I spun around. No one there. I walked back to the intersection of the alley and the street. I looked both ways. No one there. I walked back down the alley, turning one last time. No one there. I opened the door and locked it behind me. I went up to my office, knowing that tonight I wouldn't get a single word written . . . that I would be watching the monitor nonstop, just in case anyone suspicious poked their head into the alleyway, looking around.
My eyes hardly left the monitor for the entire six hours of my shift. Somewhere toward the end of the night, the thought struck me, You're a little unhinged by all this. To which the only reply could be, Being under suspicion for murder does strange things to one's psyche.
When I left my work at six, however, I did discover someone waiting at the end of the alley for me. It was Sezer's stooge, Mr Tough Guy. He blocked my path as I approached him.
'Monsieur Sezer wants to see you,' he said.
'At this hour?' I said, trying to appear cool – even though I was suddenly anything but cool.
'He is awake.'
'I need to sleep.'
'You sleep afterwards.'
'I'd like to stop by the boulangerie and pick up—'
He had me by the arm.
'You come now,' he said.
So back we went to my building and up the stairs to Sezer Confection.Himself was seated behind his desk, sipping a demitasse of coffee.
'You keep early hours,' I said.
'I don't need much sleep,' he said. 'Unlike you.'
'How do you know that?'
'You come home every morning at six ten, six fifteen the latest, after stopping at the pâtisserie for two pains au chocolat. You sleep until two p.m. You pick up your wages at the Internet café on rue des Petites Écuries. You generally eat at a café near the canal Saint-Martin or the Gare de l'Est. You spend most of your days at the movies – though every few days, you pay a visit to someone on the rue Linné in the Fifth. A woman, I presume?'
'You've had someone following me?' I asked, my voice just a little shrill.
'We simply like to monitor our employees' movements . . .'
'Our employees. Am I working for you?'
'Put it this way: we are all working for the same organization.'
'And what organization might that be?'
'You surely don't expect me to tell you that.'
'Well, how about telling me why you told the cops that I killed Omar?'
'I never said such a thing. I simply informed them, under interrogation, that you'd had an ongoing dispute with Monsieur Omar about the condition of the toilet.'
'Under interrogation? You make it sound like they were beating you with a rubber hose.'
'Like most people, I am not at ease when in conversation with the police.'
'You tried to set me up . . . tried to finger me as the killer as a way of deflecting attention from—'
He raised an index finger and said, 'I would stop right there if I was
you, monsieur. I dislike accusations.'
'Even though you think nothing of making false accusations against other people.'
'The police have nothing whatsoever on you—'
'Except a motive – courtesy of you – and my fingerprints all over the toilet brush.'
'Fear not. The evidence is weak.'
'I'm their prime fucking suspect.'
'There will be no problem – this I can assure you – as long as you do what you are told.'
'By which you mean . . . ?'
'You tell the police nothing about your work, no matter how hard they press you—'
'I wouldn't dream of—'
He raised his finger again to silence me. Why was everybody doing this?
'And you also don't do anything idiotic like try to run away.'
'The cops have taken my passport.'
'That has never stopped anybody from fleeing. False passports can be bought in this quartier for two hundred euros maximum.'
'I'm going nowhere.'
'I'm pleased to hear that. Because it would be very problematic for you if you did try to vanish. Not that we would allow you to vanish . . . unless, of course, you made us make you vanish.'
A small tight smile from Monsieur Sezer. I could feel the sweat cascading down my neck.
'Do you understand what I am telling you, Monsieur Ricks?' he asked.
I nodded.
'Very good. Then if you understand that, you must also understand that your movements are known to us at all times. Continue with your life as it is – your bookshops, your movies, your cafés, your woman in the Fifth, your work at night – and, I assure you, there will be no problem. Try to make a run for it – head to some railway station or attempt to purchase false documents – and the response will be fast and brutal. Are we clear about that?' I nodded again. He said, 'I need to hear you say, "I understand."'
'I understand.'
'Very good. I also want you to assure me that, if the police approach you again, you will inform me immediately about their line of questioning.'
'You have my assurance,' I said, sounding like a complete flunky. Though I wanted to add, If you're so worried about me going to the cops, why the hell did you finger me as the prime suspect? But I knew the answer to that question: By putting me under suspicion, he could appease the police and also keep me in his control.
'Then we are in complete understanding?' he asked.
'Yes,' I said.
'Excellent. One last thing: regarding that idiot you fucked – Yanna. I'm afraid that her husband has been informed of her infidelity with you. He has also been informed that you visited a walk-in medical clinic a few days ago and were diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease—'
'You asshole,' I heard myself say.
'Intemperate remarks like that cannot but upset me. And I do not like to be upset. Yes, Yanna's husband will kill you . . . but only if we tell him to. He's like Omar – stupid, bestial. But he also knows his place in the pecking order of things. So, once again, fear not: he won't hurt you, unless ordered to.'
'I don't want trouble,' I heard myself say.
'Then you won't have any . . . unless you make trouble. Good morning, Monsieur Ricks.'
He motioned to Mr Tough Guy, who tapped me on the shoulder and pointed toward the door. I exited through it and down the stairs. Though part of me wanted to hurry across the courtyard, out the door and down to the commissariat, I knew I'd just be playing into everybody's hands if I did that. Sezer would find some way of providing definitive evidence that I murdered Omar, and the cops would happily buy it. As far as they were concerned, this case needed a denouement – and my conclusive guilt was it.
Think, think.
But all I could do right now was think about how tired I was, and how bed was the only logical place for me right now.
So I went to my room and drugged myself, as I knew sleep wouldn't arrive without massive chemical help. I didn't set the alarm. The next thing I knew there was a loud banging on my door.
'American! . . . American!' a familiar voice shouted.
It took me several moments to work out where I was, and to squint at my watch. Four thirty. Shit, shit, shit. I was due at Margit's in thirty minutes.
'American! . . . American!'
More banging.
I staggered out of bed, my head still fogged in, and opened the door. Mr Beard was standing outside, looking pissed off.
'Where the fuck were you?'
'What?' I asked.
'You always pick up your money at two thirty p.m. Today you're not there . . .'
'Overslept.'
'You no oversleep again,' he said, tossing my pay envelope on the floor. Then he turned and left.
I picked up the envelope. I went back inside. My grogginess had suddenly vanished, replaced by a deeper, unnerving realization: They really are following me now. Any moves out of the ordinary will be jumped upon in a nanosecond.
I forced myself into the shower. I was dressed and heading out the door ten minutes later. I turned around three times as I hurried toward the métro. No one there. But they were there. They knew my every move.
I was back on the street by five fifteen, hurrying down the rue de Paradis. I passed the joint which Yanna co-owned. I made the mistake of glancing in as I passed by. Yanna was behind the bar. Our eyes met – and immediately I could tell that something was very wrong. Within moments, she was out on the street, screaming at me. With good reason. Her face looked like it had come under extended assault. Both eyes were blackened, her lip had been split open in two places, there were gashes above her eyebrows, and her right cheek had turned an inky purple.
'You stupid bastard,' she shouted. 'I follow your advice, I tell him what Omar did, and look what he does to me.
Starts telling me someone informed him you'd been fucking me too.'
'I'm so sorry—'
'Sorry? ' she shouted. 'The bastard nearly killed me . . . and now he's going to kill you. So much for your brilliant "plan"—'
'You have to go to the police—'
'And really end up dead? You understand nothing, American. Nothing. You better run away now. Far away. Otherwise you'll end up dead. Like Omar.'
'He killed Omar?'
'Impossible. I didn't tell him until the morning he got in. Omar was dead by then. But he knew about Omar's death by the time he walked in here. Just as he also knew I'd been stupid enough to fuck you. That's the part I can't figure out . . . how he found out about us . . .'
Because Sezer must have called him in Turkey before his departure and told him. Maybe he also threw Omar into the mix, and Yanna's husband made a phone call before boarding the plane and Omar received his mid-bowel movement tracheotomy that night.
The Woman In The Fifth Page 27
