The Paris Directive (4 page)

6

DORDOGNE RIVER, BERGERAC

M
azarelle had volunteered to drive the convict Émile Fouché to the prison in Périgueux. Actually, Rivet, his boss, had asked him to do it, and he thought why not. A nice day for a drive. What else did he have to do that was more important? He owed Fouché a small favor after bagging him for the bank job at the Société Générale in nearby Marmande. It had been no great trick tracking him down, given how amateurishly Fouché had handled things. His fingerprints everywhere. Plus in his excitement, he’d left behind his carefully written note to the teller. A wonder he’d had enough brains to wear a long peaked hat and dark glasses. In all fairness, Fouché was new at the game, a virgin, innocent rather than stupid. But that only came out at the trial.

Fouché was married and the couple had one very sick kid, a retard. Monster bills, of course. Though he’d had a good job with Hewlett-Packard—the American computer company in Grenoble—he’d been pink-slipped months earlier along with several hundred others as soon as the economy began to tank. Last hired, first fired. The family lost their house and Fouché, according to his attorney, fell into a subterranean depression. He was currently unemployed, the three of them now living with his mother-in-law in Bergerac. It wasn’t the sort of story that inevitably led to cleaning out banks and the
maison
d’arrêt
in Périgueux, but in the inspector’s experience it helped.

Mazarelle realized that in doing his job he’d helped too. The kind of case he hated. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so down while working in homicide in Paris. All the way to Périgueux, Fouché
barely spoke a word, his face as long as an ironing board. The inspector wondered if his condition was contagious. It could ruin his own sunny disposition. Sure, Mazarelle had been bored lately, but he might end up at the end of a rope if he hung around this guy long enough.

“Bonne chance,”
he told Fouché, when he took off his cuffs and handed him over to the guards. The prisoner said nothing until just before going inside. “The bank bastards,” he muttered. “They repoed everything—our car, our house. My wife warned me. She said that’s what happens when you work for foreigners.”

All the way back to Bergerac, Mazarelle thought about his options. He could return to Paris and, if he could still get it, his old job in homicide, or remain on the force here or take early retirement. Or he could even try something new. He needed more time to think things over.

He wasn’t happy, despite the unusually warm, gorgeous weather. It was much too nice to be indoors, and a little exercise wouldn’t hurt either. Besides, it was too late to return to the commissariat, and anyhow he hadn’t had lunch. Where better to go on a day like this than the river?

He picked up a baguette, some Emmental, a paper cone of picholine olives, a bottle of Stella Artois, and rented a rowboat. There were people with babies on the grass and some noisy, laughing, loudmouthed teenies kicking a ball around. Playing hooky just like him. Rowing out into the middle of the river where it was quiet, Mazarelle pulled up his oars, took off his shirt. On his large upper right arm a tattooed heart with the initials AVO on the ribbon across it. Martine, when he first met his wife, had asked if that was an old girlfriend. “In a way,” he told her. “It’s Latin.
Amor vincit omnia.
” As for the Glock 9-millimeter bullet holes—an entry wound near the front of his left shoulder and a somewhat larger exit wound higher up on his back that she thought resembled ugly knots in the bark of a tree—they were the real thing.

The sun felt great on his body, soothed his mind. And with any luck, maybe the first tan of the season. He stuck his hand into the water and his fingers went numb. No wonder no one was swimming. Actually there
was
someone—a woman he hadn’t noticed gliding
smoothly through the water like a crocodile with only the top of her head sticking out. Removing a shoelace, Mazarelle tied one end of his lace around the oarlock, the other around the neck of his beer bottle and dropped it into the river. The bread, cheese, and olives were delicious, and when he pulled up his Stella Artois it was refreshingly chilled. A perfect picnic.

Stretching out, he closed his eyes and felt himself drift away. Thinking of Émile Fouché stuck in the can for the next few years and feeling sorry for the poor chump. A victim of globalization and the celebrated Inspector Mazarelle.

It’s only when I’m having a good day in the flics that I’m feeling okay, not bad, thought Mazarelle. Maybe I did someone some good in this life. Makes me feel I paid my dues. If it’s a mediocre day, I’m no great Mazarelle fan. And if it’s a black day like today—the kind where you wake up in a half daze and your life in the flics marches past you like a circus freak show and you say, “My god, is that what I’ve done with my life? You mean it was
all
shit?” I’ve been a policeman now for two decades and more and that’s a
long
time. How much crap can I take? I should have left for Paris by now.

Mazarelle opened one eye to see what all the noise was about. Some guy jumping up and down on the shore, frantically waving his arms and pointing at the river, crying for help at the top of his lungs. Mazarelle scanned the surface of the water. A city block away, he spotted the swimmer’s head thrashing about. In trouble. Grabbing his oars, he rowed swiftly toward her, so fast his oars in their rusty locks screamed in agony as the boat knifed through the river. For a good swimmer like that it had to be a cramp, and as he raced up to her he could see that it was. No reason to dive into the frigid water. He didn’t need to be a hero and freeze his balls off. All he had to do was get her out alive. Mazarelle extended the blade of his oar to the thrashing swimmer and she lunged for it. He grabbed her hands—two ice cubes—and in one powerful move yanked her into the boat. A nice-looking young woman, with a raspberry face. He wrapped his shirt around her shaking shoulders.

“You okay?”

She nodded her head, trying to catch her breath, and he rowed quickly toward shore. It was then Mazarelle heard the commotion
behind him and turned to see what was going on. The guy who’d been yelling, “My wife! My wife!” had leaped into the water and sunk like a stone. Two of the teenies jumped in to rescue him.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Your husband. He was trying to save you.”

“But he doesn’t know how to swim.”

By the time Mazarelle had arrived on shore with the woman, the boys had fished out her husband and were standing around the motionless blue-lipped body as if he were already dead. His wife rushed to him but collapsed at his side, exhausted. Mazarelle, fortunately, was trained for emergencies. Once in Paris on the Métro he’d even helped a pregnant woman deliver her baby.
Libération,
reporting the story, called him the “Swiss Army knife of detectives.”

Coolly the inspector ticked off what had to be done. First, he ran to his car and put in a call to the local hospital for an ambulance. Then, returning to the sobbing woman’s husband, he tilted his head back. Good, he was still breathing. Mazarelle dropped to his knees for CPR and began to pump him out, the river gushing from the man’s mouth, his nose. The miserable sinker coughed, his chest heaving, the air rushing back into his lungs, the pink to his cheeks.

“My wife …” he mumbled.

“She’s here,” Mazarelle reassured him. “She’s fine. Next time don’t be a hero.”

When the ambulance arrived and he’d helped the driver load them into the back, Mazarelle shook his head. What a jerk. But at least he’d tried. How could he have lived with himself if he hadn’t tried? Poor bastard. The sad truth is he would have lost either way. Mazarelle had learned that what really drives you crazy is when you know it’s hopeless, and there’s nothing you can do.

7

CAFÉ VALON, TAZIAC

N
ot far from the main square in Taziac is the rue Blanche, a short, narrow, side street that rarely sees tourists and dead-ends in a scrap metal shop. On the right-hand side, with its blue neon sign in the window, is the Café Valon.

Two old friends sat drinking at the end of the bar nearest the door. They’d been there all afternoon, their eyes glazed and watery. At the other end was Mickey Valon, who owned the place, talking to Thérèse, who used to work for him on and off before she had her baby. Thérèse wasn’t bad looking, if you liked the big-boned type, but a little worn around the edges. Her husband, Ali, was bent over the pool table in back, playing a game by himself and dreaming of a killing. He had the soul of a hustler.

Except for Thérèse, all the other customers were men, and at that hour there weren’t too many of them. The café was filled with cigarette smoke and the heavy aroma of steaming meat coming from the kitchen. Suddenly the big dog curled at Thérèse’s feet jumped up and ran to the door, its friendly tail flailing the air. Mickey glanced across at the unshaven, long-haired hippie in the torn leather jacket who had just come in and told his mutt to stop bothering the customer. “Come here, you big dope! Come here, Javert.”

The dog stuck around just long enough to be petted by the stranger and then bolted, darting behind the bar. Mickey asked the stranger what he’d like to drink. Reiner ordered a glass of
rouge
. As he waited, he glanced around the café and noticed the guy in back playing pool by himself. When his wine arrived, he paid, took a sip off the top, and carried his glass to the rear. Standing by the pool
table and drinking, Reiner silently watched the stick work of the guy with the blue bandanna tied around his head. The only sound the sharp clicking of the balls.

Ali seemed to pay no attention to the stranger, letting the hook sink in good and deep before he looked up, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He asked the stranger if he wanted a game.

“Pourquoi pas?”
said Reiner, and snatched a cue from the rack.

The Arab watched him and liked the casual way he did it. With none of the life-and-death attentiveness of an ace duelist selecting a pistol or a blade. It boded well. He held out his hand and introduced himself as Ali.

“Pierre,” the stranger said. “Pierre Barmeyer.”

From the bar, Thérèse anxiously tried to see what was going on in the back. They quickly settled on the stakes—a hundred points at twenty francs a game. Ali racked up the fifteen balls as if he’d been doing it all his life. They lagged and Reiner won the break, but when he hit his cue ball, it wedged itself harmlessly into the pack. Taking his turn, Ali not only managed to dig it out but pocketed a couple of balls in the process. He followed that with a string of three more before calling the 5-ball, which hung tantalizingly on the lip of the side pocket.

Chalking his cue tip, Reiner dropped in number 5. His cue ball followed.
“Merde!”
he muttered under his breath. From that low point, things disintegrated, and in time Ali put him out of his misery.

Reiner pulled out a twenty-franc note and tossed it on the table. Whisking it away, Ali invited him to another game.

“D’accord,”
he said eagerly.

As they played, Thérèse came back and looked at Reiner. He fixed her with his steady gaze, his narrowed dark-blue eyes taking all of her in—the short skirt, the long legs, the tight dress that had been washed once too often and now barely covered her backside—until she began to feel uncomfortable and turned away. Leaning over the table, Ali was sizing up his next shot when she whispered something in his ear. “Fuck off,” he told her.

“A fine-looking woman,” Reiner said, watching her walk back to the bar. The Arab said nothing. “Your wife?” Ali shook his head. It was none of the guy’s business one way or the other.

Reiner mentioned that he was looking for work and inquired if Ali knew of anything. Ali asked what he did. Reiner called himself a jack-of-all-trades. Painter, stonemason, electrical work, home repairs, anything that put a jingle in his jeans. Ali said that he was working at a place out of town called L’Ermitage, but he already had a helper. There was nothing for him there. In the past, however, he’d done odd jobs for the English who owned the house on the adjoining property. You can try there, he told him. But they probably wouldn’t be arriving till the end of next month.

Thérèse, without glancing at Ali, stormed by the table and he stared after her. She was on her way to the crapper to squat on the Turk and then fix up her face in the scrap of mirror nailed to the wall. Though he hated to let loose of this pigeon, Ali knew it was time to go.

“Let’s play another game.” Reiner said that he wanted a chance to win back his money. “I feel lucky.”

“Another time. I’ve got to go.”

“Come on,” he coaxed. “You don’t have to go yet. What’s your hurry?”

Ali was sorely tempted. He felt Barmeyer was challenging him and wondered where this
savate
got his balls after losing two in a row by lopsided margins. The games had been strictly no contest, and Ali had the forty francs in his pocket to prove it. When Thérèse came back, Ali grabbed her by the arm to remind her who was boss. She waved to Mickey on their way to the door. The two old guys at the bar said good-bye to her. No one said anything to Ali.

No sooner were they outside in the street than she asked, “How much did you lose this time?”

“What makes you so sure I lost?”

“You always lose. And we barely have enough to get by as it is.”

“Shut up!” He smacked her hard across the face, turning her cheek scarlet. “Quit nagging me.”

Back inside the Valon, Reiner racked up the balls as if he’d been doing it all his life. The more he saw of the Arab, the less he liked him, and since he’d begun watching Ali he’d seen a lot. He didn’t like the way he pushed his girlfriend around any more than the way he took his forty francs. But the money was an investment that would pay off.

Brushing his blackened hair out of his eyes, and glancing up front to make sure no one was looking back, Reiner leaned over the pool table and sent the cue ball smashing into the pack. It exploded, a multicolored starburst of balls that shot like radar-guided missiles into the pockets.