The Great Swindle

by Pierre Lemaitre

  Almost. But not utterly impossible.

  Because, the fact that Péricourt had sent for him, had stooped so low as to ask for his help, had sent a messenger to his mistress’s bed to fetch him, must surely mean he needed him desperately.

  What could have happened that the old man had been reduced to calling upon Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle, whose very name he could not mention without contempt? Henri had not the slightest idea. But here he was, in the old man’s study, no longer standing, but sitting, and it was not he who was asking for help. A ray of hope began to glimmer. He asked no questions.

  “Without my help, your problems are insoluble.”

  Here, Henri’s pride led him to make his first mistake: he pursed his lips dubiously. M. Péricourt reacted with a fury of which his son-in-law had not thought him capable.

  “You are dead!” he roared. “Dead, do you understand? Given the business you are mixed up in, the government will take everything from you, everything! Your wealth, your property, your reputation . . . you will never recover! And you will end up in prison.”

  Henri was of that breed of men who, having made a tactical blunder, are capable of excellent intuition. He got up and made to leave.

  “Stop right there!” M. Péricourt said.

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Henri turned, strutted across the room, leaned over his father-in-law’s desk, and said:

  “Well, stop wasting my time, then. You need me—I don’t know why, but let me be very clear, regardless of what you ask, my conditions will be the same. You have the minister in your pocket? Very well then, you will personally intercede on my behalf, you’ll have every scrap of evidence against me buried, I want no charges brought against me.”

  Henri settled himself once more in the armchair and crossed his legs, looking for all the world as though he were at the Jockey Club waiting for the steward to bring his brandy. Another man in this situation might have trembled, worried about what would be asked in return; not Henri d’Aulnay-Pradelle. Having spent three days brooding over his impending downfall, he was prepared for anything. Just tell me who to kill.

  M. Péricourt was forced to explain everything: how he had come to commission a war memorial, the extent and scale of this swindle of which he was perhaps the most important, the most prominent victim. Henri had the good sense not to smirk. And he began to sense what it was his father-in-law was going to ask.

  “The scandal is about to break,” Marcel Péricourt said. “If the police manage to arrest these men before they get away, everyone will want a piece of them—the government, the courts, the newspapers, the veterans’ organizations, the victims . . . I don’t want that. I need you to find them.”

  “What do you plan to do with them?”

  “That’s not your concern.”

  “Why me?” he said.

  He quickly bit his tongue, but it was too late.

  “To find scum takes someone well acquainted with the gutter.”

  Henri took this on the chin. M. Péricourt immediately regretted the insult, not because he felt he had gone too far, but because it might be counterproductive.

  “Furthermore, time is of the essence,” he said in a more conciliatory tone. “It could be a matter of hours. And you are the only man I have at hand.”

  Toward six o’clock, having moved perhaps a dozen times, Henri was forced to face the fact that his surveillance mission would not produce results. Not today, at least. And no one could say whether there would be a tomorrow.

  What alternative did he have but to wait around on the off chance that the men who had rented Box 52 would make an appearance? The printworks that had produced the catalog?

  “No,” Péricourt had been adamant. “If you go, you would have to ask questions, and if word gets out that there are concerns about the printer, it will be traced to their clients, to this company, to the swindle, and there will be a scandal.”

  If he could not go to the printer, that left only the bank.

  To find out where Patriotic Memory had deposited the down payments received from its clients would take time, and approval, all things that Henri did not have.

  It was the post office or nothing.

  True to his nature, he decided to disobey. Despite M. Péricourt’s injunction, he took a taxi to Rondot Frères, printer, rue des Abbesses.

  On the way, he again flicked through the Patriotic Memory catalog his father-in-law had given him . . . M. Péricourt’s reaction was not simply that of a seasoned businessman who has been cheated; he had taken it personally. So what was it really about?

  The taxi was held up for some time on the rue de Clignancourt. Henri closed the catalog, vaguely impressed. The men he was looking for were clearly experienced criminals, a highly organized gang he had little chance of finding since he had few resources and even less time. He could not help feeling a sneaking admiration for the sheer ingenuity of the scam. The catalog was a masterpiece. Had it not been for the fact that his life depended on catching these men, he would have smiled. Instead, he vowed that if it came to his life or theirs, he would bombard this gang with everything he had: with grenades, with mustard gas, with a machine gun if he had one. Give him a breach the size of a mouse hole, he would wreak carnage. He felt the muscles in his stomach and his chest tense, his lips tighten . . .

  That’s all I ask, he thought, just give me one chance in ten thousand, and you are all dead.

  40

  “He’s been a little unwell,” Albert told the staff at the Lutetia, who were worried that they had had no news of Monsieur Eugène. No one had seen him in two days, he no longer made calls to room service; they had grown accustomed to his extravagant tips, and this sudden dearth provoked much disappointment.

  Albert refused to let them call the hotel doctor. He came all the same, Albert opened the door a crack—he’s feeling much better, thank you, he’s resting—and shut the door again.

  Édouard was not feeling better, he was not resting, he could keep nothing down, his throat wheezed like a blacksmith’s bellows, and he still had a raging fever. It was taking a long time for his temperature to come down. Albert wondered whether he would be fit to travel. How the hell had he got hold of heroin? Albert had no idea whether it was a large quantity of heroin, he knew nothing about such matters. And if not, if Édouard needed more during the crossing—which would take several days—what then? Having never been aboard a ship, Albert was terrified at the thought of being seasick. If he could not look after his sick friend, who would?

  When not sleeping or violently throwing up what little food Albert could get him to swallow, Édouard lay motionless, staring at the ceiling; he left his bed only to go to the toilet. Even then Albert hovered. “Don’t lock the door,” he said, “in case something happens and I need to help.” Even when he was on the toilet . . .

  He did not know which way to turn.

  He spent all day Sunday taking care of his friend. Édouard spent most of the time in bed, bathed with sweat, racked by convulsions followed by terrible groans. Albert shuttled between the bedroom and bathroom with fresh towels, he called room service and ordered eggnog, beef bouillon, fruit juice. Toward the end of the day, Édouard asked for a dose of heroin.

  “Just to get me through,” he wrote feverishly.

  In a moment of weakness, alarmed by his friend’s condition and panicked at the thought of their imminent departure, Albert agreed, though he regretted it at once: he had not the slightest idea how to do it yet here he was, yet again, coming to the rescue . . .

  Though Édouard’s movements were hesitant—due partly to agitation and partly to exhaustion—it was obvious he had done this many times before; to Albert this was a new betrayal, and he felt hurt. Yet still he played the role of assistant: holding the syringe, flicking the flint wheel over the tinder . . .

  It felt a lot like their early days together. The opulent suite at the Lutetia had little in common with the military hospital where, two years earlier, Édouard had almost died o
f septicemia waiting for a transfer to Paris, but the closeness between them, the fatherly care of the one for the other, Édouard’s addiction, his deep unhappiness, the black despair that Albert generously, guiltily, clumsily tried to keep at bay, brought back memories, though it was impossible to say whether they were comforting or troubling. It was like a wheel coming full circle, a return to the beginning.

  As the injection went in, Édouard’s whole body jolted, as though someone had kicked him viciously in the back and tugged his head by the hair . . . It lasted only a moment or two, then he lay on his side, his face serene, and he slipped into salutary listlessness. Albert sat helplessly, watching him sleep, and his pessimism once again took the upper hand. In his heart, he had never quite believed they would succeed in pulling off their scheme, or, if they did, that they would manage to get away; now, with his friend in such a sorry state, he did not see how they could possibly take a train to Marseille and then a steamship crossing lasting several days without being spotted. To say nothing of his worries about what to do about Pauline—confess all? run away? lose her? War had been a lonely business, but it was nothing compared to the period since demobilization that was beginning to seem a veritable descent into hell; there were times when he felt ready to turn himself in, to get it over once and for all.

  But, since he had to do something, sometime in the late afternoon Albert went down to the lobby while Édouard was asleep to confirm that M. Larivière would be checking out at noon on July 14.

  “What do you mean, ‘confirm’?” the manager said.

  A tall, grim-faced man, he had fought in the war and had come close enough to a sliver of flying shrapnel to lose an ear. A few inches closer and he would have ended up with a face like Édouard’s, but he had been lucky: he could hold his glasses in place with a piece of sticky tape that neatly matched his epaulets, which hid the ugly scar where the shrapnel had grazed his skull. Albert remembered stories he had heard of soldiers who lived with pieces of shrapnel in their brain because they could not be removed, but no one he knew had ever met one. Maybe the manager was one of these living dead. If so, he did not seem much affected; he still had an unerring ability to tell the gentry from the masses. He pursed his lips faintly. Regardless of what he said, and despite his neatly pressed suit and his polished shoes, Albert was obviously a commoner, perhaps it was something about his gestures, or maybe his accent, or that deference he could not but adopt before a man in uniform—even a hotel manager.

  “So, Monsieur Eugène is leaving us?”

  Albert nodded. Obviously Édouard had made no mention of his departure. Had he ever really planned to leave?

  “Of course!” Édouard wrote in answer to Albert’s question when he woke. His handwriting was shaky but still legible.

  “Of course, we leave on the fourteenth!”

  “But you haven’t got anything ready . . . ,” Albert insisted. “I mean, no suitcase, no clothes . . .”

  Édouard slapped his forehead, what an idiot I am . . .

  He scarcely ever wore the mask with Albert, and the sour stench from his exposed throat was sometimes hard to bear.

  As the hours passed, Édouard’s mood improved. He was eating again, and though still unsteady on his feet, by Monday his recovery seemed significant, and reassuring. When he left the suite, Albert considered taking the stuff with him—the heroin, the few remaining ampoules of morphine—but abandoned the idea as too tricky; Édouard would not let him, and besides he did not have the courage—what little strength he had was entirely focused on anticipating their departure, on counting the hours.

  Since Édouard had made no preparations, Albert went next door and bought him clothes at the Bon Marché. To ensure that he was not let down by his taste, he quizzed a sales clerk, a man of about thirty who eyed him contemptuously. Albert said he wanted something “very chic.”

  “And what particular sort of ‘chic’ are we looking for?”

  The clerk, seemingly eager for his response, loomed over Albert, staring at him.

  “Well,” Albert stammered, “it’s . . . I suppose what I mean is . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Albert racked his brain . . . He had never thought “chic” could mean anything other than “chic.” He waved toward a shop dummy on his right, a wave that encompassed everything: the hat, the shoes, the coat.

  “I think that’s chic . . .”

  “Ah . . . that gives me a better idea,” the clerk said.

  He carefully removed the outfit, laid it on counter, and stepped back to admire the ensemble, as though contemplating a painting by an old master.

  “Monsieur has excellent taste.”

  He recommended an assortment of matching ties and shirts, Albert made much of seeming hesitant, but agreed to everything, then watched with relief as the clerk packed it all up.

  “We will need . . . a second outfit,” Albert said. “For over there.”

  “I see . . . for over there,” the clerk echoed as he finished tying the parcel. “And where precisely is ‘over there’?”

  Albert had no intention of mentioning their precise destination, absolutely not, on the contrary, he had to be cunning.

  “The colonies,” he said.

  “I see . . .”

  The clerk suddenly seemed intrigued. Perhaps he, too, had once had dreams and plans.

  “What kind of outfit did you have in mind?”

  Albert’s sense of the colonies was a hodgepodge of picture postcards, stories he had heard, photographs he had seen in magazines.

  “Something that would be appropriate in a place like that . . .”

  The clerk pursed his lips and gave a knowing look—I think we have just the thing—this time there was no dummy for him to get a sense of the overall effect, what about this jacket, feel that fabric, and these pants, the height of elegance and yet extremely practical, and, of course, this hat.

  “Are you sure?” Albert ventured.

  The clerk was positive: the hat makes the man. Albert, who believed that shoes made the man, bought everything he suggested. The clerk gave a broad grin—perhaps at the mention of the colonies, or perhaps the fact he had just sold two outfits—but it gave him a curiously predatory air Albert had previously seen in bank managers, an expression he did not like at all, but he could ill afford to make a scene here, right next door to the hotel, they would be leaving in two days, there was no point making a mistake that would ruin all their efforts.

  Albert also bought a fawn leather trunk, two new suitcases—one to carry the money—and a new hat box for the horse head mask, and had everything delivered to the Lutetia.

  Last, he chose a pretty, very feminine box, into which he put forty thousand francs. Before going back to wake his comrade, he went into the post office on the rue de Sèvres and mailed it to Mme Belmont with a little note saying the money was for Louise, “when she grows up,” that he and Édouard were counting on her “to invest it wisely until Louise is old enough to make use of it.”

  When the clothes were delivered, Édouard looked at them and nodded in satisfaction, he even gave a thumbs up—bravo, perfect. He doesn’t give a damn, Albert thought. And he went to find Pauline.

  In the taxi, he rehearsed his little speech and arrived filled with the best of intentions: this time he would tell her the whole truth, there was no alternative, today was July 12, two days from now—if he were still alive—he would be leaving, it was now or never. But his resolve was more like a prayer because, in his heart, he knew he could not bring himself to make such a confession.

  He thought about the reasons he had not told her before now. It all came down to a moral issue he suspected was insurmountable.

  Pauline had come from a humble background, a good Catholic family, her father was a laborer, her mother a factory worker, no one is more particular about decency and honesty than humble working-class folk.

  To Albert’s eyes, she looked more dazzling than ever. He had bought her a hat that brought out all the gra
ce of her perfectly triangular face, of her radiant, disarming smile.

  Sensing Albert’s awkwardness—he was even quieter than usual and seemed perpetually on the brink of saying something, but no words came—Pauline tingled at the most thrilling moment of their relationship. She was convinced he intended to propose but could not bring himself to take the plunge. Albert was not just shy, she thought, he was a little self-conscious. He was adorable, really sweet, but unless you wormed the words out of him, you could be waiting around forever.

  At the moment, she was enjoying this dithering, she felt desired, she did not regret giving in to his advances, to her own passions. She pretended to be amused, but she was convinced that this was the moment. For days now, she had taken a certain pleasure in watching as Albert tied himself in knots.

  And tonight (they were having dinner in a little restaurant on the rue du Commerce), the way he had said:

  “The thing is, Pauline, I am not enjoying my job at the bank, I’ve been wondering whether I should try my hand at something else . . .”

  He’s right, she thought, these are not the kinds of decisions to make when you have three or four children, you need to be a young man to strike out on your own.

  “Really?” she answered casually, one eye on the waiter bringing their entrées. “Like what?”

  “Well . . . I don’t really know . . .”

  It sounded as though he had spent much time thinking about the question but never about the answer.

  “My own little business, maybe,” he said.

  Pauline flushed. A little shop . . . The pinnacle of success. Just think . . . Pauline Maillard, Fancy Goods, Paris.

  “So . . . ,” she said, “what sort of shop?”

  Or maybe just: Maison Maillard. Groceries, Haberdashery, Wines & Spirits.

  “Well, er . . .”

  Typical, Pauline thought, Albert does things his own way, but his own way doesn’t get him far.

  “. . . maybe not a shop as such . . . More a trading company.”

  To Pauline, who found it difficult to grasp what she could not see, the concept of a “trading company” sounded very vague.