Eyes Full of Empty (12 page)

“Cut the engine.”

“What?”

“Cut the engine.”

I signal Cherif. The exhausting roar stops.

“Now leave the keys in the ignition and go home.”

I hang up and look at Cherif. “He wants us to get out of the car.”

“Why don't they get out? They're the ones who want the damn car.”

“Don't make a scene.”

We comply. The BMW's passenger door opens. A man in a bomber jacket emerges. What gets me, before I even notice his size or his height, is his face. He doesn't have one. Or rather, he has one, but it's hidden. He's wearing a ski mask. I'm not as well versed in the thugocracy as my childhood friends, but I know a few of its codes at least. And when a guy comes out wearing a ski mask in the middle of the night, that means something. Which seems totally out of whack with what he's come looking for. You wear a ski mask when you're picking up a shipment of
coke, not to get a car when you're sure that car hasn't been followed. Cherif must feel the same way I do.

“Idir, what the fuck is this?”

Without a word, the guy comes over to us. He's probably counting on getting behind the wheel of the car and starting it up—I'm sure neither of us would lift a finger to stop him. At this point, the night can still end well. We even have time to go nurse a mojito, in peace, around République before going home to bed. But that's not counting the unmarked car—flashing light on the dash—that cruises right by us in slow motion. The cops who find themselves looking at two brown-skinned guys and a third guy in a ski mask, frozen in the middle of the street next to a luxury automobile with very dinged-up bodywork. They must be wondering if there's a camera hidden somewhere, or if we really are just a bunch of amateurs.

The rest goes by real fast. Turns out, Ski Mask is packing. He pulls an automatic weapon from his belt as quick as a trained soldier and opens fire on the cop car. Sparks fly from the hood. Cherif takes off; I follow. We cross the road at top speed. More shots from behind us, then the sound of engines. Two cars pass us by: the BMW and the car we brought them, leaving us alone, chased by cops. Running hard. I don't know the neighborhood. I don't know where we are. All I hear are sirens. Cherif ducks into a metro station. I think it's a bad idea, but I follow.

“Hide your face! The cameras!” he shouts as we hurtle down the stairs.

He pulls his hood up; I turn up my jacket collar. We hit the turnstiles like coming out of a slingshot. I haven't jumped a turnstile in years. My leg hits the bar; I take a blow to the knee. The sound of an arriving train. Stairs to the left, stairs to the right, fifty-fifty, but which? Cherif keeps me from having to
choose by heading left. The beeping noise I've heard all my life. The doors close on a corner of my coat, but we're good. We're in. It's crowded, Saturday night and everyone looking at us—everyone always looks at the two assholes who make the subway at the last second. But the doors open again. Cherif risks a glance out the window. He sees cops coming down the stairs.

“The back. Quick.”

We push people aside, clear a path. Two cops enter the car and try to spot us. A third waits on the platform, shouting at the driver not to leave. He's not wearing a uniform. The conductor probably thinks he's a nutjob. He gets scared when he sees the man running toward his cabin like a crazy person. So he restarts the train. The doors beep and the metro leaves, with Cherif, me, and two cops in the same car, radioing in for reinforcements at the next station.

“We get off at the next stop or we're dead,” Cherif whispers.

I count the seconds in my head until the metro slows and the platform appears. I see Cherif's hand reaching for the door. I look at my shoes. The door opens. Cherif runs out first. I hear shouting behind us.

“Stop! Don't move!”

I tell myself they won't shoot me in the back. I speed up, not looking back, and hurl myself up the stairs behind Cherif. The street. I feel like we've gained a few yards on them. I also feel like my lungs are about to explode. Cherif points at a bunch of teenagers standing outside an apartment building. Music from the floor above. A party in a nice apartment.

“C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!”

He charges at the group, which drifts into the building without seeing us. The door closes. Cherif shoots forward, foot out, and kicks the latch from the lock. The door bangs against the
wall, and I duck in behind him before it shuts again.

Cherif catches his breath, hands on his knees. Looks at me furiously. I lift my hand in a conciliatory gesture. “Sorry, man. There was no reason that should've gone down like that.”

Cherif motions for me to shut up and presses his ear to the door.

“They there?”

“Can't tell. Can't hear a thing with the music.” Back to the wall, he lets himself slide down to the ground. “Shit, we're stuck here. Fuck.”

I go upstairs, following the music.

“The fuck are you doing?”

“Crashing the party.”

“What?”

“What if a neighbor comes in and finds us here?”

The apartment isn't hard to find. The music's turned all the way up. We knock at the door several times. Cherif gives me a little slap on the cheek and grabs my chin, his red eyes looking into mine.

“If the cops come for disturbing the peace, and they—”

The door opens. A girl about twenty, too well fed to look comfortable in her little black dress, greets us, a glass of champagne in one hand.

“We're friends of—”

“C'mon in and have a drink,” she says. No questions.

We follow her into the apartment. It's too dark for her to see the gash on my skull. The lighting probably makes my haircut look hip.

“What's your name?” she asks, glancing back over her shoulder.

“Uh—he's Jean and I'm Alain.”

I turn to Cherif, who nods like a little boy. The girl bursts out
laughing, spilling some of her champagne on the floor.

“Delighted. I'm Chloe.”

We reach the end of the hallway. She waddles into a massive room with a parquet floor screeching from the torture of all those heels driving to the rhythm of violent electronica.

I try for a joke. “At least there are some hot chicks.”

Cherif doesn't respond. He looks at me, jaw pumping like he's chewing some imaginary gum. Then he crosses the room, pushing people aside.

“Where are you going?” I shout in his ear over the music.

“To get a drink. I need one.”

We go through several rooms, giant salons where the guests are spread out. They're all dressed to the nines: dancing, wandering down the hallways high, kissing—sometimes more—in the corners. The bar's a real bar, with a real bartender behind it. This is the first time I've ever seen anything like it. Goddamn, to think all these people are under twenty-five.

“What can I get you gentlemen?” the bartender asks.

I wonder if Cherif is going to burst out laughing or punch him in the fucking face. He goes for a third option. He orders. “I want a huge whisky. The size of a glass of Coke.”

The bartender gives him a strange look. Takes out a glass. Starts to fill it. Cherif grabs him by the wrist and keeps him from righting the bottle till the glass is almost full.

“There. Nice job, buddy.” He takes the glass. The bartender gives us another look and leaves the room. Cherif downs his whisky like it's water. It makes me want some, and I grab another bottle from the bar so I can drink straight from it.

“I have pulled some shit-ass jobs. But tonight was the shittiest of the shitty.”

“I'm so sorry, man.”

“Shut the fuck up and drink your whisky.”

Soon the bartender comes back, another jerkoff in tow with the same model's face and frosted streaks. I wonder how any grown man can be that thin without appetite suppressants or serious bulimic tendencies.

“Who are you?” He doesn't look happy to see us. I try to explain what our grubby faces are doing at a party that seems as private as it does swanky.

“We're friends of—”

“Who invited you?”

“We came with, uh—Chloe. Yeah, Chloe.”

“And who are you?” Cherif asks the guy, staring him down.

“The owner of this apartment,” says the guy self-importantly. “And I don't know any Chloe.”

Cherif suddenly starts beaming. “Aw, c'mon, sure you do.”

He tugs at the guy's sleeve. The guy pulls his arm back.

“C'mon, man, she's over there. She's the one who brought us.”

Cherif walks toward another room in the apartment, looking for the girl from before.

The other guy follows him. “No, not that way!”

Too late. Cherif has just walked into a massive bedroom.

“Ah shit, I thought she was over here.”

Now all three of us are alone. The master of the house seems to be getting pissed off. “Gentlemen, finish your drinks and get out, or I'm calling the cops.”

Naively, he thinks he's won the round. He turns his back on us to return to the other room. Big mistake. I see Cherif's hand hurtling toward the back of the guy's neck and, with a simple shove, Cherif sends his face crashing into the jamb of the door he was about to go through. The guy collapses, out cold.

“He was starting to get to me. Give me a hand over here.”
Quickly, Cherif shuts the door and grabs the party's host by one foot, dragging him across the parquet. I take the other.

“Let's stick him under the bed, so he can take a nice nap and no one sees him.”

We stash him under a canopy bed.

“You really KO'd him there.”

“Shut your face. It's your fault we're here.”

“So what now?”

“Now we wait for the metros to start running again in the morning and get out of here.”

Sprawled on a dark sofa and with an eye on the closed bedroom door, we pass the bottle of whisky from the bar back and forth. Right in front of all those partying people. Music turned up to the max. Not speaking a word to each other. It's the ideal time to wonder why I'm such a fuckup. Why everything I touch always turns into a goddamned can of worms. I'm starting to feel drunk, which doesn't help things and makes me chatty.

“I found Claude.”

“What?”

The music covers my voice. “I found Claude. Unless I mean Stephan—anyway, the brother of the dead guy we found. Well actually, he found me.”

“What are you talking about? Stop drinking for a second.”

“He jumped me at home the night we came back from Bagnolet. Stuck his gun right in my mouth. I pissed my pants. I begged.” I swallow. A tear comes rolling down my cheek before I even feel it coming. “I killed him.”

“What?”

“I killed that fucking son of a bitch. I paid a crew that rolls with Tarik to clean it up.”

Cherif takes my head in his hands. “Hush.”

“I fucking killed him! I—I didn't mean it. It's not what I meant to happen.”

Cherif is whispering in my ear. I don't even understand what he's saying anymore; they're just words you use to comfort a scared child, waking from a nightmare.

Around six
A.M
., we leave the apartment with the last of the partygoers. From what I understand, most of them are planning to keep the night going at a private club in Wagram. We share a taxi with a guy who lives near the Opéra. Once we get there, we walk a little and then sit down at a café, savoring a coffee and a croissant in silence, squinting, blinded by the pallid day.

“That's some serious shit that happened to you,” says Cherif in a tired voice, not exactly inviting conversation. He takes a sip of his coffee.

“I think I was naive. The guy who hired me was on the level, so—”

“What, a guy with his own commando unit that shoots at cops? You think?”

“All he asked me to do was find his car.”

“Yeah, sure. And while tracking down the car, we find a dead guy whose brother tries to kill you in your own home and a goddamn giant in a ski mask shooting off his gun like it's Bastille Day.”

“You don't understand. This guy, he talks to me just like you would, playing it straight.”

“Maybe. But right now he's fucking you over like I never would. Keep that in a corner of your mind the next time you see him.”

CHAPTER 6

A
FTER A FEW HOURS OF SHITTY SLEEP RIPPED FROM THE DAY
'
S
clutches, I decide to head straight over to Eric's office without trying to reach him first. I feel like I'm walking in slow motion through a massive movie set, in the middle of people scurrying everywhere. Still exhausted from the night before, I struggle not to fall asleep on the subway seat. Nearly miss my station, but I manage to get off at Champs-Élysées. The Champs. A few minutes later, I'm standing in front of Eric's secretary—the kind of girl who doesn't even look pretty anymore, despite a more than flattering figure. Just seeing how she draws her lips back in a sneer when I talk to her—she'd spit in my mouth if I asked her for water. I tell her I'm here to see Eric Vernay. Without taking her eyes from her computer screen, she says he's in a meeting. I tell her I don't give a shit. She picks up her phone and passes on the message. Then, with a limp finger, she points at the gleaming sofa across from her, which looks like it was just bought last night.

I barely have time to sit down before Eric comes hurtling out of his office. “Hello, Idir.”

Composed as ever, that way he has of making you feel like everything's going great.
We're just good people here, working on your everyday problems
.

“Nice work. You here for your money?” He must see from my face that I probably want a bit more. “Is there a problem?”

“I want to talk to you for a minute.”

He gestures for me to follow him and opens the door to a meeting room.

“You've got five minutes,” he says, not bothering to sit down.

“Who took the car?”

He smiles. “I don't think that's any of your business.”

“I think it is.”

“It doesn't fall within your purview.”

“Neither does getting caught in a firefight with the police!”

“That was unanticipated. Hazards of the trade.”

“No, no,” I correct him. “Unanticipated hazard is running into a carful of cops. Unanticipated hazard is a chase through the streets. Getting arrested. Doing time if you're not lucky and if it comes to it. But you never, ever open fire on the cops. Especially not over a fucking car!”

Eric keeps his cool. “I'll make sure you're well paid.”

“That's not the point.”

“So what is the point? You think you can march in here and lecture me? I don't pick people for jobs like this based on their résumés. So if I'm responsible for my guys, it's only up to a certain point. But I back them up all the way.”

I shut my mouth, stunned by his words.

“I've readied your payment. Cash. I'll overlook the repairs needed on the vehicle.”

We walk outside the meeting room. He signals to his secretary, who turns around and opens a closet. She takes out a huge leather bag and sets it on her desk. Eric claps me on the shoulder.

“There. Your money's inside. A pleasure working with you. Keep the bag, it's a gift.”

“That's all he said?” Cherif asks.

I'm telling him about my meeting with Eric over mint tea at a café in Ménilmontant. “Yup.”

“And you don't think that's weird?”

I shrug.

“Either you're really fucked up or you're hiding something from me. Whatever, I don't care.” He gets up, looking tired.

“Cherif, wait—” I extend my hand. “Thank you, for everything.”

“You're welcome.”

“I'd like us to split the money.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I want us to split it.”

“Keep it, Idir. I make a living just fine.”

“You never know. At least set it aside to pay some big shot if things ever go sour.”

“OK, fine. Nice of you. Just don't jinx me, OK? The only thing I need to do to avoid things getting sour is stop hanging around with you. That's hairier than jacking a Ferrari from the Trocadéro on a Saturday afternoon.”

“I'll write you a check.”

“Idir, look at me. Do I look like the kind of guy who takes checks?”

I grin and hand him the bag with half the money in cash. “Kidding. Here. I threw in some for the kid in Bagnolet too.”

He looks inside the bag.

“Count it if you want.”

“No.”

“Hey, Cherif?”

“What?”

“What a fucking night, right?”

“Go fuck yourself!”

“Save that for next week, your birthday maybe.”

He gives me a smile equal parts sly and surprised. “So you didn't forget! I rented out a bar, but since I thought you forgot, I didn't invite you.”

“You're such a bastard.”

He laughs. “See ya. Ciao.”

I watch him go. I know the whole outing turned him on. Goddamn sicko. I wrap up my Mr. Big Shot tour and give the rest of the money to Tarik. He promises he'll pass it on to the kids who took care of the body. I've spent all of Eric's money. There's nothing left.

My phone rings as I'm going upstairs to my apartment. It's Nat. She says she's in the area and asks if she can drop off the tapes. I tell her to swing by. Five minutes later, the doorbell rings.

“Oh, you…got a haircut. Looks nice.”

I can tell she doesn't mean a word of it. “Thanks. Please—come in.”

I close the door behind her. I can see from the rings under her eyes she's been crying, but I make no comment. “Sit down, sit down. Can I get you something to drink?”

“Yes, I'd like that.”

I head for the kitchen and realize she's sitting in my living room. I wonder if she can smell death still lurking in the corners. If she comes across a scrap of brain I overlooked, what will she think? That I had dinner in front of my TV and didn't do a good job picking up after myself? She takes the tapes from her purse and sets them on the table.

“Here you go—that's all of them. I gave them a good listen, and—”

I cut her off. “Hey, uh, Nat—you eat yet?”

“No.”

“How about a meal out?” I can see she's hesitating. “We'll discuss it over dinner. C'mon, you'd be doing me a favor. You're never in this part of town.”

Next thing you know, we're both standing in the street. “I know a nice place a little farther up.”

We walk all the way to Montmartre. The streets are crowded. She seems to enjoy the bustle.

“It's a change from your neighborhood, huh? There's more action out here in one night than in a year up by you.”

She smiles and glances at me. “Don't make fun. I lived around here in my student days.”

“Oh really?”

“Down that way, toward Poissonnière.”

I didn't remember that. Maybe I'd never known. “No kidding!”

She smiles again. “Sure. I grew up in Essonne. I came here to study for college. My parents didn't have enough money to rent me an apartment, so I found a tiny garret. It was horrible, but I was happy. Not having to take the train into Paris anymore, are you kidding?”

Now I know why I'd never known, because back in the day she'd lied about it. She pretended, hiding the name of the godforsaken hole where she was from. She probably lost her virginity to some tracksuited creep who sold nine-bars at the local train station. Who might've done some time along the way. Who definitely had a shitty life today. And here I'd always thought of her as unapproachably upper crust.

“You hid it well. I was convinced you were the daughter of a cabinet minister.”

She lifts a hand like she's about to hit me. “Stop teasing me!”

I don't take her all the way up the Butte—too easy. That's where some Parisian undergrad would take a Dutch exchange
student. Instead, we stop halfway up at a Nepalese place. I find it weird, thinking like this, when she's been my friend for years. And my best friend's wife.

The restaurant is deserted. She picks a little table at the back. Once we've ordered and they've poured the wine, I bring up the case. “I'm sure the kid ran away. Nothing serious. He'll be back.”

“I'm not so sure,” she replies.

“How's that?”

“He's quite lucid about his situation. He's not just some spoiled kid doing some soul-searching. He knows what he is, what he wants—and what he's worth. He wants a long-term solution and these tapes play a part in that. Just running away for a while would be childish. And he's too brave to run away…” She stops talking. A few moments of silence.

“What's going on, Nat?”

She sighs. “Oh, nothing.”

“Stop it. You didn't look well when you showed up. What's wrong?”

“It's Thomas. It's always Thomas. And if you ask him, it's me.”

I smile. She gives me a murderous look.

“Sorry, it's just—isn't that how it's always been?” I say. “Ever since the three of us have known each other. It's been more than ten years. I think that's just how it works.”

“I'm not sure I follow.”

“Of everyone in our class, you guys were made for each other—king and queen, if you will. And you know what? I think even without your affair with Oscar, he'd have been pathologically jealous. You knew it before you married him.”

“I hate him.”

“Oh, come on—”

“Idir, you have no idea—”

“You're just saying that because things are complicated right now, because he thinks—”

“He's a piece of shit!” she shouts, then looks around. But the restaurant's still empty, and the waiters don't speak French that well. She tucks her brown hair behind her ears, embarrassed.

“You—you want to leave?” I ask, no longer sure I know what this conversation is about.

She frowns at me. “Leave? The restaurant?”

“No, leave Thomas.”

“Maybe,” she says, sounding like she doesn't really believe herself.

“Forgive me, but I'm not sure I understand. You're going through a rough patch, sure. I want to hear whatever you have to say. But if you want me to badmouth Thomas along with you, I won't go there. I'm not judging you. Just like I'm not judging him. After all, he's still my friend.”

“Why does he mean so much to you? Without him, you could've stayed in school—”

“Stop—”

“You'd never have gone to jail—”

“Stop! Thomas never forced me into anything. All he did was make me an offer. If I was dumb enough to take him up on it, that's on me. It's on me if I wanted to prove I was a tough guy so all the world could see. And pretty soon, I figured out how stupid I was. Once I was in jail.”

The waiter interrupts us with our entrées. Which is fine by me, because I hate dredging up memories from back then. I take the occasion to knock back my wine in one gulp and pour myself another glass. Nathalie sticks her fork into her plate like nothing's the matter and starts eating. “Delicious!”

“Glad you like it.”

“Thanks for bringing me here. I really needed a night out.”

“My pleasure. We don't see each other often…enough.”

“What do you think Thomas would say if he saw us here together?”

“Nothing,” I say, before digging into my dish.

“Nothing?”

“Nothing at all. He trusts me completely.”

“But not me, is that it?”

I shrug and keep eating. We end up bursting into laughter.

“I think that of everyone in our class, you're the only one who never tried to hit on me. Why was that? I remember I was starting to get offended.”

“What's with these questions?”

She laughs it off, but then insists. “Why? C'mon, give me an answer.”

“You weren't my type.”

“Liar! You were checking me out like everyone else!”

We laugh again. Then the laughter fades away and she's back to being stubborn. “Why?”

“I don't know. You were going out with my best friend. I—”

“Don't give me that bullshit,” she says, leaning across the table and bringing her face close to mine, like she's going to kiss me. She's too smart and too sure of her looks to fall for baloney.

“I knew I'd never get you. Call it my pride. I'd never have let anyone touch it. Especially not you.”

My response doesn't seem to surprise her, like she expects as much. “So my first question leads me to a second.”

“Go ahead.”

“Idir, when you beat Oscar to a pulp, why did you do it?”

“Sorry, I don't see the connection.”

Her stare doesn't falter, and I realize I have to give her an
answer. “I told you—to prove I was a badass, to be accepted, and for the money too.”

“Nothing to do with me?”

“No, nothing.”

“You swear?”

I look her in the eye. “I swear.”

She knows I've just lied to her.

I insist on paying the bill. We head back out to the street. Cold has settled over Paris; the summer didn't last. She shivers. I notice and say, “We'll try to find a taxi fast.”