Six Months to Kill

by Enzo Bartoli

  ‘That’s right. Come with me.’

  We follow him like well-behaved little children as he leads the way through what feels like herds of wild animals to a spiral staircase. We climb up to a gallery overlooking the dance floor where a handful of revellers, probably off their heads on booze or worse, are hanging over the railings or sitting slumped in red velvet armchairs. We are above the speakers now and the noise level is a smidgen more tolerable. Karl positions himself at a safe distance from the drunks and leans on the railing.

  ‘OK! So, you’re looking for a docile type of escort. Someone not too fussy about the type of client they’ll work with. Have I got that right?’

  ‘Yes. You could put it like that. What we really need is . . .’

  ‘Tut, tut! I don’t want to know what you’re going to be doing with him. All I’ve been asked to do is to show you who’ – he points down towards the mass of people on the dance floor – ‘might need the money enough to accept something a little out of the ordinary. That’s as far as I want to get involved.’

  ‘We realise that. We’re listening.’

  He doesn’t take long to find what he’s looking for. He points out a young Arab man, a very effeminate type who, we learn, goes by the name of Luigi. We watch him as he dances.

  ‘He’d fuck just about anything if it meant he could make the money he needs for his surgery in the States. He’s easy-going enough, but I don’t think you can ask him to go too far.’

  His eyes continue to search the crowd. He then indicates a big guy, tattooed from top to toe.

  ‘Anton! He’ll do anything you ask. Nothing puts him off. But you need to watch it . . . He’s a complete dope fiend and he’s already got a name for himself with the police. So you might question his reliability, you know what I mean?’

  I nod along with Chloé as if I actually know what he’s talking about.

  Just like a salesman in an electrical goods store, he moves on to the next item and proposes Marvin, a young man dressed rather more conservatively than the other patrons. A stray strand of hair falls over his eyes and he boasts a piercing on his top lip. There’s nothing that would differentiate him from your typical teenager.

  ‘As for him . . . I don’t really know what to tell you. He hasn’t been working here all that long, but I know he needs to get his hands on some cash. I don’t know how far he’d be prepared to go to get it, but according to his clients he’s all right.’

  Karl evidently considers his inventory complete, because he turns to us and addresses Chloé. Only Chloé.

  ‘I’ll let you sort it out with them. If you need my help again, you can count on it, but make sure you’re not in here every night, please. See ya!’

  We watch as he saunters past what looks like an addict struggling to catch his breath in one of the chairs and runs back down the stairs, to the relief of his clearly overwhelmed colleague behind the bar.

  ‘An interesting character,’ I say to Chloé. ‘Do you know a lot of people like him?’

  ‘None. He’s a friend of some friends . . . friends I don’t even know that well, but who do come in useful from time to time. There’s the proof. So, what do you think?’

  ‘I think we should be able to make a quick enough decision, don’t you? Reimbach has often expressed his aversion to Arabs and Muslims, so we can exclude the first one straight away. I didn’t really understand what the deal was with the second guy, but I didn’t get a good feeling about him . . .’

  ‘There’s no way we can get mixed up with someone who’s already been involved with the police. He’s out of the running, I agree.’

  ‘So that leaves us with Marvin.’

  ‘We need to get a move on.’

  We hurry back down into the bear pit. As we’re heading to Marvin’s table, a tall and busty blonde starts to paw at Chloé’s buttocks. She takes it better than I might have expected and simply removes the woman’s hand before continuing on her way. At the same time, I give a somewhat confused smile in response to a man with a moustache and leather baseball cap who asks if I’d like to join him and his friends for a drink.

  Although the clientele are clearly intent on including us in their fantasies, I’m not convinced that we’re fully blending in here. Quite the opposite, I would imagine. On top of this, the young man is very much on the defensive as soon as Chloé makes it clear that we want to talk to him.

  ‘Hello, Marvin. Let me introduce myself. Chloé Schneider. And this is my friend Régis.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  I wouldn’t say his response is aggressive, but he gives a hint of a sneer.

  ‘Could we get you a drink? We’d like to chat with you a while,’ Chloé continues.

  ‘You can get me a drink. And we can talk. But I don’t really want it to last a “while”. I’d like to be able to get some work done tonight.’

  ‘Well, that’s what this is about.’

  ‘You? You two? Work with you two? That’s a joke, right?’

  ‘Not at all. Though it may not be the sort of work you’re used to. But come and listen.’

  The young man hesitates for a moment and looks like he’s wondering whether following a pair like us is the right thing to do. He even holds on to his chin while he decides. ‘What about this one? Does he ever open his mouth?’

  Chloé laughs loudly as she stares at me. Fair enough, compared with her I feel like a bit of an oddball – but there’s no need for her to rub it in.

  ‘Sure. He speaks sometimes, but what he says is not always intelligible and not always all that interesting. Come on, it’ll only take us fifteen minutes to tell you what we want, and you can make up your mind afterwards.’

  Won over by Chloé’s charisma, Marvin takes us up on our offer and we all go to get refills. I try to stride with confidence in the hope that I’ll go unnoticed on the dance floor. This is pointless. As well as the general vulgarities thrown my way, I have to contend with more than one pair of adventurous hands. Quite the gauntlet.

  When we reach the bar, Chloé turns to ask the young man what he’d like, then puts me in charge of getting in a mojito for him and another beer each for us. I decline yet another invitation – even more outrageous than the offers I’ve had so far – as we make our way back up to the gallery, where we can pursue our conversation in a slightly quieter environment.

  As I put the three glasses down on the table, I note that it’s made from transparent fibreglass laid on a casting of a copulating couple. Tasteful.

  Chloé is doing her best to strike a chord with young Marvin. ‘Let me be totally clear with you,’ she declares. ‘I couldn’t give a toss how you earn your living. You must have your reasons.’

  ‘You’ve got that right, yes.’

  ‘But if those reasons are purely financial, we can help you earn a lot more . . . and in a lot less time. Are you interested?’

  ‘Just cut the crap and get to the point.’

  ‘I’m getting there. Just answer me this: are you in this profession as a career move, or are you just out to make as much as you can as quickly as possible?’

  The young buck looks on the verge of fleeing, but still appears to want to know more. Strangely, he turns to me to help him make up his mind. I try to give him a reassuring smile. Miracle of miracles – it works.

  ‘I need megabucks,’ he splutters. ‘And I need it fast.’

  ‘Very good,’ replies Chloé, clearly pleased with this admission. ‘You don’t have to give me all the ins and outs, but I do need to know whether it’s to clear some sort of . . . dodgy . . . debt. The sort of debt that might involve gambling or drugs.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that. I’m totally clean. And I’ve got nothing to hide either. I just need to get out of here. I want to move over to Australia, where I have a friend . . . and I need some funds, so I don’t have to show up there like a beggar.’

  ‘And how much are we talking?’

  He turns to me again as if checking whether or not he should answer. I don’t get
the chance to give him any signs of approval this time because Chloé pipes up again.

  ‘Come on. Give me a number.’

  He hesitates for a further few seconds, looking sidelong at this woman who’s come from nowhere as if she’s Mother Christmas, before answering in a timid tone, ‘Twenty grand?’

  ‘We’ll give you thirty if you accept our offer tonight and promise to make your way down under as soon as the job is finished. That means within a fortnight, three weeks tops.’

  It’s not only the young gigolo who’s left breathless at the sum. I remember Chloé talking of financial means and if she isn’t bluffing, she can get the drinks in from now on.

  Marvin takes his time digesting the news. I’m certain he must already be imagining himself out in the Pacific, lying on a beach surrounded by blond, bronzed surfer types. But whatever his motivations might be, he isn’t backward in coming forward.

  ‘What do I have to do?’

  ‘Arthur Reimbach. Do you know him?’

  CHAPTER 9

  The effects are devastating. Lodged at the beginning of the week, precisely when the newspapers don’t have much in the way of news, Marvin’s complaint is initially published by Le Canard enchaîné before the rest of the papers follow suit. Some report it in a sober fashion whereas others, particularly the left-leaning press, have a field day. Ten days later, via an opinion piece on TV, it all reaches a climax. Just as one might expect, Reimbach, in turn, presses charges for defamation of character. Marvin makes an indirect reply to him by agreeing to a TV interview in which he reveals in extensive detail how he was made the sexual plaything of the well-known patriot and two of his friends at night-time orgies held in Reimbach’s apartment.

  It is only following this interview that our target starts to adopt the attitude we want from him. He’s done with crying slander and conspiracy. Little by little, he shies away from all journalists, saying that justice will prevail and that this case has already caused enough harm to his family and loved ones.

  While all this is going on, Chloé and I aren’t simply biding our time. We keep in regular contact with Marvin and coach him as to how to handle the press – even getting him to tone it down on occasion. Along with the entire gay community, he hates Reimbach and is obviously taking great pleasure in dragging him through the mud. But he could so easily get carried away. We have to keep an eye on it. Above all, we do not let our future victim out of our sights. We take turns to follow him everywhere he goes, and we meet regularly to exchange any information we collect during these long hours in the field.

  We have planned to have lunch today. It’s almost one o’clock when I collapse into a booth in a large brasserie in the Les Halles district. I’m actually doing a little better than I was earlier today. I saw Lazreg just twenty-four hours ago and his awful treatment means I should really be resting. It’s been a long morning. I’ve felt sick, but more than that . . . I’ve felt down. For the first time since receiving my death sentence, I feel a definite anxiety and even sadness. I feel that in losing this life – a life I’ve found until now to be insipid and undesirable in every sense – I’ll lose feelings that I’ve never known before, and which are only just being offered to me now. And it’s all too late.

  I’m not a fool and I’m not trying to hide from the truth. I know it’s Chloé who has brought me all this.

  She fascinates me.

  Nothing gets the better of her. Nothing scares her. She charges through her existence with relentless enthusiasm. As head of a humanitarian organisation, she’d surely be able to put an end to world hunger or reduce global warming by a couple of degrees. But no. She’s decided to dedicate part of her life to killing people. And why not?

  Oh! I almost forgot an important little detail. I tried my luck.

  That’s right. I, Régis Gaudin, dared to believe that I could have a sexual relationship (unpaid for) with a woman. And not just any woman, but the woman who had all the girls down at S eating out of her hand, no less.

  She turned me down, obviously. But she was kind about it and didn’t say anything that would hurt my feelings. I even feel like her ‘no’ could well have been a ‘yes’ if I’d chosen another moment or gone about it in a different way . . . or had more confidence in myself. If she had accepted, she’d have been the fifth woman I’ve ever known – in the biblical sense. I’m not exactly departing this life with a lot of notches on my bedpost, am I?

  Women are just so complicated. Compared with the female of the species, the Fermi-Dirac integral or Pauli’s exclusion principle are child’s play.

  Here she is now. She looks beautiful – as always. She glows – as always. And she looks particularly elegant in her flimsy little dress. My lustful thoughts disappear as quickly as they enter my head, because as she sits opposite me there’s not the slightest tenderness in her demeanour. She’s attentive, but no more than that.

  ‘How do you feel now? You didn’t look too great this morning.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I’ve been in quite a bit of pain, but it’s improved over the last couple of hours or so. What are you having?’

  ‘Got your appetite back?’

  ‘Yes. I’m a little hungry, in fact.’

  ‘A seafood platter and champagne? How does that sound?’

  ‘Are we celebrating something?’

  ‘Yes!’

  Minutes later, I gaze at her eyes shining through the bubbles in her champagne flute. She invites me to clink glasses, and I grumble a little as I sip the Moët & Chandon. It’s cold, dry and fizzy. And that’s all I can say about it. Give me beer any day of the week. Perhaps this is some other odd and anarchic way in which my brain works. I have no idea when it comes to taste. I couldn’t tell a table wine from a classified grand cru. But it saves me money. I’m quite down-market when it comes to alcohol. But this isn’t the case with Chloé, who, it seems, will use just about any pretext to open a bottle of the sparkly stuff.

  ‘Do you actually like it?’ I ask.

  It’s impossible for her to have followed my train of thought and she needs clarification.

  ‘What, the champagne?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I love it! Nothing gives me more pleasure.’

  She replies with a spontaneity I’ve come to expect from her, but an expressionless look falls across her face within seconds. She looks so very serious, ashen – as though I’ve awakened a painful memory.

  ‘What’s going on? Have I said something I shouldn’t?’

  ‘Not at all. I was just . . . thinking of you.’

  ‘Ah! A pleasant thought indeed! You look delighted!’ I flash her a grin.

  She bats away my remark. ‘Don’t be silly.’ She seems almost embarrassed, or confused. She continues. ‘Actually, it is your fault.’

  ‘What did I do?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just that you make me feel guilty. I really enjoy myself when we’re together and I think about the adventure we’re about to embark on . . . but I just wish I could do something for you. I want to make you happy, and I feel as though I just have to put all that to one side every time we meet.’ She stops, and takes a little time to think before speaking again. ‘And I’m sorry about the way I spoke to you when you asked me . . . You know what I mean.’

  ‘It’s no problem.’

  ‘I hope I wasn’t too harsh? It’s not easy for me . . . that kind of thing. I was hurt badly . . . and since then . . .’

  I don’t want to hear anything about her romantic history and I have even less desire to listen to her justify herself. The last thing I want is her sleeping with me out of pity. My dismal career as a seducer hasn’t seen a major event now for over three years. It’s a fiasco.

  I wave my hand at her, giving her permission to stop talking. ‘Forget all that. Tell me what’s happening with Reimbach instead.’

  She seems relieved, and is clearly eager to change the subject. ‘We’re serving him up on a platter.’

  ‘What’s been going on?’

&nbs
p; ‘It looks as though he’s really fallen into a deep depression. His doctor has been to see him. As soon as he left, that housekeeper woman went straight to the chemist. I followed her, and I overheard what he’d been prescribed – antidepressants. And they’re going to have to be injected. Do you get me?’

  ‘Yes! We can pretend to be nurses.’

  ‘Bingo! All we have to do is get in there before the real nurse, and then he or she will discover the body. Suicide by overdose.’

  It’s now or never. I think about how we’re going to implement all this. Will we have to forestall the nurse? It seems a little risky. It’d be better to simply replace her altogether; then we’d know she wasn’t going to show up. We could telephone the district nurse’s office and cancel the appointment. That would leave us enough time to complete our operation. I tell Chloé what I’m thinking and although she agrees, she does put a dampener on it.

  ‘It’s a great idea, but there are a couple of other things I need to tell you. One’s good news, and the other is . . . well, we’ll see. Should I start with the good news?’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘The housekeeper asked the chemist for the number of a nurse. He gave her a specific name and telephone number. She said she needed one to come over in the afternoon just after lunch. I didn’t catch the whole number, but I do have the name, so it should be easy enough to find. And the other piece of news is . . .’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘The nurse’s name is Thomas Guinard. So . . .’

  ‘It’s going to have to be me.’

  She watches my face for signs of apprehension. I reassure her. What she’s told me doesn’t bother me in the least. It’s as if I’ve already accepted the idea of becoming a killer. This is what she wants from me anyway. I’ve never really been that fond of humans and one I particularly hate is coming within reach; so that will make it all a little easier, won’t it? I consent with a nod – albeit a slightly restrained one – adding that I hope I’m up to it. Chloé confirms that she doesn’t doubt it for a second as the waiter in his immaculate white shirt and long black apron comes to refill our glasses. Cheers!