The Great Swindle

by Pierre Lemaitre

  Men could not see what it was in this Henri that had that justified such unseemly haste; he was handsome enough, granted, but even so . . . So much for the men. Women, on the other hand, could see it right away. They had only to look at him, those thick curls, the pale-blue eyes, the broad shoulders, that complexion, and they understood why Madeleine Péricourt had been drawn to sample such delights, why she had been captivated.

  M. Péricourt had not insisted, the battle was lost before it was begun. He made do with judiciously imposed limits. Among the bourgeois, this is known as a marriage contract. Madeleine had made no objection. The dashing son-in-law, on the other hand, had sulked when he saw the draft drawn up by the family lawyer. The two men had stared at each other without uttering a word, a sensible precaution. Madeleine would remain sole heir and possessor of her property and would enjoy joint ownership of all assets accumulated during the marriage. She understood her father’s reservations about Henri, of which this contract was irrefutable proof. To those with great fortunes, prudence becomes second nature. She smiled at her husband and told him it did not change anything. Pradelle, for his part, knew that it changed everything.

  He felt cheated at first, poorly rewarded for his efforts. In the lives of many of his friends, marriage had settled their problems. It could be difficult to negotiate and required skillful maneuvering, but when achieved, it was a godsend: once married, a man could do as he pleased. For Henri, on the other hand, marriage had changed nothing. Granted, from the point of view of status, he had to admit it had been a boon, but Henri was a poor man with immoderate tastes. From his personal businesses he had quickly pocketed a hundred thousand francs, which he immediately invested in refurbishing the family house, but there was so much to do . . . the whole estate was collapsing.

  Henri had not found his fortune. But the deal had been far from a failure. First, the marriage would finally put an end to the incident on Hill 113, which had been causing him some anxiety. If it were to resurface (and incidents that might seem long forgotten sometimes did resurface), it was no longer a risk, since he was now rich, even if only by proxy, and allied to a family as powerful as it was prestigious. Marrying Madeleine Péricourt had made him almost invulnerable.

  Second, he had gained an extraordinary advantage: access to the family contacts. (He was the son-in-law of Marcel Péricourt, an intimate of M. Deschanel, and friend of M. Poincaré, M. Daudet, and many others.) And he was very satisfied with the initial return on investment. In a few months, he would be able to look his future father-in-law straight in the eye: he was fucking his daughter, he was exploiting his contacts, and three years from now, if all went as planned, he would loll in an armchair any way he pleased when the old man came into the smoking room.

  M. Péricourt kept himself abreast of how his son-in-law was making his money. There was no doubt the young man was swift and efficient: he managed three companies that, in a few short months, had already returned profits totaling almost a million. Seen from this perspective, he was a man admirably adapted to his times, but M. Péricourt instinctively mistrusted his success. Too sudden, too questionable.

  He had quickly attracted supporters and clients: great fortunes invariably attract courtiers.

  Henri watched his father-in-law at work. He was impressed. There was no doubt the old curmudgeon was a master. He had style. With discriminating munificence he dispensed advice, approval, and endorsements. His entourage had learned to consider his suggestions as orders and his reservations as vetoes. He was the sort of man with whom it was impossible to be angry when he refused to grant a favor, since it was within his power to take away whatever you had left.

  At that moment, Labourdin finally rushed into the smoking room pouring sweat, fluttering a large handkerchief. Henri suppressed a sigh of relief, drained his brandy, got to his feet, and taking the man by the shoulder, steered him into the next room. Labourdin scampered alongside on fat stubby legs, as if he were not sweaty enough . . .

  Labourdin was a fool made great by idiocy. In him, it manifested itself as an indomitable tenaciousness, something of a virtue in politics, though in his case it was due to his absolute want of imagination and a complete inability to change his mind. Mediocre in everything, invariably ridiculous, Labourdin was the sort of man one could safely appoint to any position; he was a loyal beast of burden, one could ask anything of him. Everything about him was written on his face: his affability, his love of food, his cowardice, his insignificance, and, especially, his prurience. Incapable of resisting a filthy joke, a lewd remark, he stared at every woman with unbridled lust, especially maidservants, whose derrières he fondled whenever they turned their backs, and was formerly in the habit of visiting brothels three times a week. “Formerly” because, as his reputation spread beyond the boundaries of the arrondissement of which he was mayor, many women clamored for his attentions, and there were always one or two prepared to spare him a trip to the whorehouse in exchange for an authorization, a favor, a signature, a rubber stamp. One only had to look at him to know Labourdin was happy. A full belly and a full pair of balls, he was always ready for the next meal or the next piece of ass. He owed his election victory to a small group of influential men over whom M. Péricourt presided.

  “You are about to be nominated to the Adjudication Committee,” Pradelle told him one day.

  Labourdin loved being appointed to commissions, committees, delegations, considering it proof of his importance. And since the news came by way of his son-in-law, he assumed he had been nominated by M. Péricourt himself. In a large, spidery scrawl, he had carefully noted down the instructions he was to follow. When he had finished issuing orders, Pradelle gestured to the piece of paper.

  “Now, get rid of that list,” he said. “You don’t want to see it plastered up in the window of the Bon Marché!”

  For Labourdin, this had been the beginning of a nightmare. Terrified at the thought of failing in his mission, he had spent sleepless nights memorizing the instructions one by one, but the more he recited them, the more confused he became; the nomination was by now torment, the commission his bête noire.

  During the course of today’s meeting, he had had to expend every ounce of concentration, he had had to deliberate, to make pronouncements; he had emerged exhausted. Exhausted but happy, he emerged with the satisfaction of having done his duty. In the hansom cab, he had been practicing what he considered “elegant turns of phrase,” of which his favorite was “My dear friend, without wishing to boast, I think I can safely say . . .”

  “How many in Compiègne?” Pradelle interrupted.

  Hardly had the door to the smoking room swung shut than the wild-eyed young man was haranguing him, leaving him no time to speak. Whatever Labourdin had imagined, it was not this, which is to say that, as always, he had not imagined at all.

  “Well, I, uh . . .”

  “How many?” Pradelle thundered.

  Labourdin could not remember. Compiègne . . . He put down his handkerchief and quickly rummaged through in his pockets, found the folded slips of paper on which he had noted the results of the decisions.

  “C . . . Compiègne . . . ,” he stammered, “Compiègne, let’s see . . .”

  Nothing was ever fast enough for Pradelle, he tore the piece of paper from Labourdin’s hand and stepped to one side, staring at the list of figures. Eighteen thousand coffins for Compiègne, five thousand for Laon, more than six thousand for Colmar, eight thousand for the district of Nancy and Lunéville . . . The figures for Verdun, Amiens, Épinal, and Reims were yet to come . . . The results were better than he had dared to hope. Pradelle could not suppress a satisfied smile, which did not go unnoticed by Labourdin.

  “We’re meeting again tomorrow morning,” the mayor said, “and again on Saturday.”

  He fancied that the moment had come for his fine turn of phrase.

  “So you see, my dear friend, without wishing to . . .”

  But at that moment, the door was flung open, a voice called,
“Henri!” . . . there was a commotion in the next room.

  Pradelle strode out.

  At the far end of the room, next to the fireplace, a small crowd was bustling about while others rushed over from the billiard room, the smoking room . . .

  Pradelle heard raised voices, took a few more steps, more curious than concerned.

  His father-in-law was sitting on the floor, leaning against the fireplace, his legs stretched out, his eyes closed, his face waxen, his right hand clutching his chest as though trying to hold in or rip out an organ. “Smelling salts!” cried a voice, “Give him some air!” said another, the club steward arrived and asked everyone to make room.

  “Well now, Péricourt, what’s all this fuss?”

  Then, turning discreetly to Pradelle.

  “You’d better send for a car at once, my friend, this is serious.”

  Pradelle hurried away.

  My God, what a quirk of fate.

  The day he became a millionaire, his father-in-in law looked set to go and meet his maker.

  Such extraordinary luck was scarcely believable.

  11

  Albert’s mind was a complete blank, it was impossible to string two notions together, to imagine what was going to happen; he tried to organize his thoughts but could not. He walked quickly, constantly stroking the blade of the knife in his pocket. The minutes ticked by, the métro stations and the streets flashed past, and still he had not a single constructive idea. He could scarcely believe what he was doing, yet he was doing it nonetheless. He was determined; he would stop at nothing.

  This dependence on morphine . . . From the beginning it had been a problem. Édouard could no longer do without it. Until now, Albert had managed to provide for his needs. This time, although he had scraped together everything he could, there was simply not enough money. And so when, after days spent in agony, his comrade had begged Albert to kill him because he could no longer stand the pain, an exhausted Albert had acted on instinct, he had grabbed the first kitchen knife he could find and gone downstairs, like an automaton, taken the métro to Bastille, and headed along the rue Sedaine into the Greek quarter. He was determined to get morphine for Édouard, if necessary, he was prepared to kill for it.

  A thought finally occurred to him when he set eyes on the Greek, an elephantine man of about thirty who walked with his feet set wide apart, panting at every step, sweating in spite of the November chill. As Albert stared in panic at the huge paunch, the heavy breasts bouncing beneath the sweater, the bovine neck, the sagging jowls, he thought the knife he had brought was useless, he needed a blade of at least six inches. Maybe twenty. The situation now seemed far from auspicious, and the realization that he had come so ill equipped depressed him. “Always the same,” he could hear his mother say, “never could organize yourself. Never could see beyond the end of your nose, boy . . . ,” and she would roll her eyes to heaven, calling God as her witness. In front of her new husband (this was a figure of speech, they were not actually married, but Mme Maillard liked everything to be just so), she would complain bitterly about her son. Meanwhile, his “stepfather”—a department head at La Samaritaine—would study his shoelaces, but the contempt was there, too, just the same. Faced with them, even if he could summon the energy, Albert would have been unable to defend himself because every day he did a little more to prove them right.

  Everything seemed to be conspiring against him; these truly were difficult times.

  They were to meet next to the public urinal on the corner of the rue Saint-Sabin. Albert had no idea how such things were done. He had made contact with the Greek by telephoning a café, saying he had got the number from a friend of a friend; since the Greek spoke barely a dozen words of French, he had asked no questions. Antonopoulos. Everyone said Poulos. Even himself.

  In fact, he said “Poulos!” as he arrived.

  For a man of such exceptional corpulence, he moved with surprising agility in short, rapid strides. The knife was too short, the guy was moving too quickly . . . Albert’s plan was truly pathetic. Having glanced around, the Greek grabbed Albert’s arm and dragged him into the urinal. There had been no flush for some time, and the air was unbreathable, something that did not seem to bother Poulos at all. This fetid place was a little like a waiting room. To Albert, who had a fear of confined spaces, it was a double torture.

  “Cash?” the Greek demanded.

  He wanted to see the money and jerked his chin toward Albert’s pocket, not knowing that it contained a knife whose blade, now that the two men were squeezed together in the urinal, proved to be even more derisory. Albert turned slightly to expose his other pocket, from which several twenty-franc bills conspicuously emerged. The Greek nodded.

  “Five,” he said.

  This was what had been agreed on the telephone. The Greek turned to leave.

  “Wait,” Albert cried, grabbing his sleeve.

  Poulos stopped and looked at him nervously.

  “I need more . . . ,” Albert whispered.

  He enunciated excessively, gesturing with his hands (when talking to foreigners, Albert often spoke as though they were deaf). Poulos knitted his thick brows.

  “Twelve,” Albert said.

  He flashed the whole wad of bills, though he could not spend them since this was all they had to live on for the next three weeks. Poulos’s face lit up. He jabbed a finger at Albert and nodded.

  “Twelve. You stay!”

  He made to leave.

  “No!” Albert stopped him.

  The stomach-churning stench of the pissotière and the prospect of getting out of this cramped space where, with every passing minute, he felt his panic mounting helped him adopt a more persuasive tone. His only stratagem was to convince the Greek to let him come along.

  Poulos shook his head.

  “All right,” Albert said and stepped past him.

  The Greek grabbed him by the sleeve, hesitated for a moment. Albert was pitiful. Sometimes it was his great strength. He did not have to make an effort to look pathetic. Eight months back in civilian life, and he was still wearing the clothes he had been given when he was demobilized. When he was discharged he had been given a choice between a greatcoat and fifty-two francs. He had taken the coat because it was cold. In fact, the government was simply trying to offload hastily dyed military greatcoats. That evening it rained, and the dye began to run in great miserable streaks. Albert had gone back and said that he had thought about it and would rather have the fifty-two francs, but it was too late, he should have thought earlier.

  He had also kept his army boots, which were by now half worn out, and two army-issue blankets. All these things had left their mark, and not just dye marks; he had that haggard, exhausted face one saw in so many demobilized men, that expression of defeat and resignation.

  The Greek studied his careworn features and made a decision.

  “Come, quick,” he whispered.

  In that moment, Albert was stepping into the unknown.

  The two men walked up the rue Sedaine as far as the passage Salarnier. When they reached the alley, Poulos pointed to the pavement and said again: “Stay!”

  Albert surveyed the deserted streets. At just after 7:00 p.m., the only lights were those of a café a hundred yards away.

  “Here!”

  The command was unequivocal.

  The Greek strode off without waiting for a response.

  He turned back more than once to ensure that his customer was obediently waiting where he had indicated. Albert watched helplessly, but as soon as the man suddenly entered a building on the right, he broke into a run, racing down the alley as fast as he could, never taking his eyes off the spot where he had seen Poulos disappear, a ramshackle building from which wafted the smell of cooking. Albert pushed open the door and made his way down a hall. He took the few steps leading down to the basement. A faint glow from the streetlight filtered through the grimy panes of a window. He saw the Greek crouching on the floor, his left arm fumbling in a
recess cut into the wall. On the floor next to him he had set down the small wooden hatch that covered it. Albert did not break his stride, he ran across the cellar, grabbed the hatch—much heavier than he had expected—and, with both hands, brought it down on the Greek’s head. The blow echoed like a gong; Poulos crumpled. Only then did Albert realize what he had just done and was so terrified that all he wanted to do was run away . . .

  He pulled himself together. Was the Greek dead?

  He bent down and listened. Poulos was breathing heavily. It was difficult to tell whether the man was seriously hurt, but a thin line of blood trickled from his scalp. Albert felt so dizzy he thought he might black out. He balled his fists, repeating, “Come on, come on . . .” He hunkered down, thrust his arm into the cubbyhole and pulled out a shoebox. A miracle: it was full to the brim with morphine ampoules, twenty and thirty milligrams. Albert recognized the dosages; he had been doing this long enough.

  He closed the box, struggled to his feet, and as he did so he saw Poulos’s arm sweep around in a wide circle . . . Unlike Albert, he was well equipped, a switchblade, with a razor-sharp blade. It slashed across Albert’s hand so quickly that he felt only a brief, burning sensation. He whirled around, one foot in the air; the heel of his boot caught the man’s temple. His head struck the floor with a dull clang. Still clutching the shoebox, Albert stamped on the hand holding the knife, then set the box down, picked up the wooden hatch again, and began beating the Greek over the head. He stopped. He was panting from the effort, from fear. He was bleeding heavily from the deep cut on his hand, and his greatcoat was badly stained. He had always been terrified by the sight of blood. It was now that the pain finally hit, reminding him he needed to take emergency action. He searched the cellar, found a dusty piece of cloth, which he wound around his left hand. Fearfully, as though stealing up on a sleeping beast, he went back and bent over the body of the Greek. His breathing was heavy and regular; he obviously had a hard head. Trembling, Albert staggered out of the building with the shoebox tucked under his arm.