Inhuman Resources

by Pierre Lemaitre

  I open my mouth, but there’s no point.

  Nicole has already left. I quickly load the files from Romain onto a USB stick, plug in my laptop to charge the battery, shut down my PC, close the corkboards that make up my wall display, head into the bathroom, and arrive in the bedroom to find it empty.

  “Nicole!”

  My voice echoes strangely through the night. It sounds like loneliness. I go to the kitchen, the sitting room . . . no one. I call out again, but Nicole doesn’t reply.

  A few steps farther and I’m outside the door of the guest room, which is closed. I grab the handle.

  Locked.

  I didn’t just make a mistake, I lied, too. I feel terrible. But I have to stay philosophical. When I’ve nailed down this job, she’ll realize I was right.

  I take myself to bed. Tomorrow is a big day.

  9

  My head didn’t stop spinning with the same questions all night. If I were in Lacoste’s shoes, how would I handle this? There is a hell of a difference between deciding to do a role play and actually staging one. Nicole’s questions come back to me: commandos, weapons, interrogations . . .

  Soon it’ll be 5:00 a.m. I left for “work” like normal and am now settled in a giant brasserie by Gare de l’Est. At the counter, I pick up a copy of Le Parisien: Paris Bourse booming. Ninth consecutive week of growth. I flick through as I wait for my coffee: . . . Tansonville factory cleared by police. The 48 employees occupying the premises . . .

  Seated at a table at the very back of the largest room, I open my laptop, and while the system boots up I drink the revolting coffee. Besides a handful of Togolese street sweepers joking around on their break, the other early birds include insomniac drunkards, night workers finishing their shifts, taxi drivers, exhausted couples, and wasted kids. This dawn underworld makes for a depressing sight. I’m the only person in the room slogging away, but I’m not the only one in distress. I open the files saved on the USB stick from last night.

  Among Lacoste’s correspondence, I find two notes written by a certain David Fontana, possibly the man I saw at BLC headquarters. The first is about hiring Arab actors and acquiring weapons loaded with blanks. The second contains a map of the premises where the hostage taking is to be held. Judging by his style and given his field, this Fontana must be ex-military. I log on to the brasserie’s WiFi and look him up. My failure to find him confirms my suspicions. So discreet he doesn’t feature anywhere, at least not under that name. I jot down a mental reminder: establish his identity, find out where he comes from.

  Right from the start, I know I’ll need help. Another essential quality for any HR manager is the ability to assemble skill sets. That’s management rule number two.

  I love the internet. You can find anything on it, however vile. The web really is made in the image of Western society’s subconscious.

  It takes me a little over an hour to find the site I need. It has police officers, former police officers, future police officers, police fans—and there’s a whole lot more of them than you might think. I spend a while chatting with the other users online, but without much success. At this time of day there’s just the dropouts and the unemployed. No interest. The safest bet would be to place an ad. I’m a novelist searching for very precise information on hostage taking. I need a user with experience in this type of situation. I give an e-mail address created especially for the occasion, but I change my mind. Time is of the essence: I give my cell phone number and cross the first item off my pad.

  The following part of my research brings very bad news. Private detective rates vary from 50 to 120 euros per hour. I do the numbers—it’s disastrous. Yet I’m struggling to come up with an alternative solution. I have to investigate these eight execs, not just their professional bios but their private lives, too. I gather three or four addresses of detective firms offering their services to businesses, and which don’t seem either overly prestigious or patently suspicious. Even if it is a bit of a lottery, I choose the ones located closest to where I am now. It’s just before 8:00 a.m. when I hit the road.

  It doesn’t matter what the office or company, the manager I meet with always resembles the person I was before, back when I was confident in my skills and still had somewhere to apply them.

  “I see,” he says.

  Philippe Mestach. Mid-forties, calm, organized, methodical, normal build. Basically the sort of person who goes unnoticed. I decide to tell it to him straight. I talk about a job opportunity, but I don’t mention the nature of the role play, simply explaining the aims of the assessment the five employees are to undergo. He clocks exactly what I’m up to.

  “So you’re definitely loading the odds in your favor,” he says. “But the timescale’s not on our side. We often investigate people on behalf of their employers—it’s a growth market for us. Unfortunately, in our line of work, the quality of the result is often contingent on the time invested in it.”

  “How much?”

  He smiles. Let’s cut to the chase.

  “You’re right,” he says, “that is what it comes down to. Shall we run through everything?”

  He tallies up all my requirements, does some calculations on a little pocket calculator, and pauses for a long moment’s reflection. He stares at the figures, returns the gadget to his pocket, then looks up at me.

  “All in: 15,000 euros. No hidden costs. Thirteen thousand if you pay in cash.”

  “What can you guarantee?”

  “Four full-time investigators and—”

  I cut him off.

  “No, I mean results! What can you guarantee?”

  “You give us the names of your ‘clients,’ we find their addresses, and then for each one we give you their marital status, detailed family history, information on assets, the salient aspects of their private and professional lives, as well as a broad outline of their current financial situation (obligations, availabilities, and so forth.).”

  “That’s it?”

  He raises a perplexed eyebrow. I carry on:

  “What do you expect me to do with general stuff like that? I’ll end up with a whole bunch of Mr. Averages.”

  “The country is populated entirely by average people, Monsieur Delambre. Me, you, them—everyone.”

  “I’m looking for something more targeted.”

  “Like?”

  “Debts, professional misconduct at a previous job, family problems, younger sister in hospice, alcoholic wife, shameful habits, speeding fines, orgies, lovers, mistresses, secret lives, Achilles heels . . . That sort of thing.”

  “Anything’s possible, Monsieur Delambre. But there again, the clock’s against us. What’s more, to dig this deep, we must use very specific channels, nurture relationships, follow up leads, not to mention get lucky.”

  “How much?”

  He smiles again. It’s not so much the wording he enjoys as the directness of the request.

  “We must be methodical, Monsieur Delambre. Here’s what I suggest. Two days after your first payment, we will provide you with the main information pertaining to each of your clients. You study these, you focus your research criteria so that we can target our approach, and I give you a quote.”

  “I’d rather pay a flat rate.”

  He takes out his little calculator and taps in some numbers.

  “For an additional two days’ investigation: 2,500 euros per client. Including bribes.”

  “And in cash?”

  “That’s the price in cash. By invoice, that would be . . .”

  More number crunching.

  “Don’t bother. I get it.”

  It’s colossal. If I only pay the additional fee for half my execs, I’m still looking at 23,000 euros. Even with the entire remainder of our savings, I’m 95 percent shy of the sum.

  “Think it through, but don’t take too long. Once you confirm, I will need to assemble a team very quickly . . .”

  I stand up, shake his hand, and get back on the métro.

  This i
s the moment of truth. I’ve known it since the start. The arguments with Nicole, the nerves of the last few days, the tension surrounding the aptitude tests and the interview with Lacoste . . . everything has just been a precursor to this final stage, which rests on one single, critical issue: the question of how far I’m willing to go.

  To succeed, I must take every risk.

  I can’t make up my mind.

  I feel terribly depressed.

  My eyes skim over the ads on the métro, over the relentless boarding and disembarking of passengers. My feet carry me up the escalator automatically, and here I am at the street where we live, in this neighborhood we fell in love with immediately from the second we first saw it.

  It was 1991.

  Everything was going well for us. We had been married for more than ten years. Mathilde was nine and Lucie seven. I called them all sorts of silly names, “my princesses,” and all that. Even then Nicole was radiant, you just need to look at the photos. We were a very French couple, with fixed jobs and reasonable, climbing salaries. Our bank informed us that we could make it onto the property ladder. Acutely aware of the responsibility, I took a map of Paris and marked out the areas where it was realistic to look, and almost at once we found somewhere right on the other side of town.

  That’s where I am now. I leave the métro. I remember. I can replay the scene perfectly in my mind.

  The charm of the place struck us right away. The neighborhood sits on a little hill, the streets weaving up and down; the buildings, like the trees, have been there a century. Ours is a tidy red-brick job. Without saying anything, we hoped that our apartment would be one of those with bow windows. As the elevator juddered. I swiftly estimated that we’d be able to fit all the household appliances in it except the sofa. The real estate agent looked at his feet, very professional, opened the door, and the apartment was incredibly light because it was so high up, and it only cost 15 percent more than what we could borrow. We were eager and panicky in equal measure. It was exhilarating. The bank manager rubbed his hands and offered us additional funding. We bought it, we closed, we picked up the keys, dropped off the girls with some friends, and returned: with just the two of us, the apartment seemed even bigger. Nicole flung open the windows that look out behind over a schoolyard with three plane trees. The rooms echoed with the emptiness to be filled and the fun to be had, with the life that was smiling on us, and Nicole grabbed me by the waist and pinned me against the kitchen wall, taking my breath away with a ferocious kiss, buzzing with excitement, but I realized I’d have to hold fire until later because she was off again, walking from room to room, outlining her grand plans with big birdlike waves of her arms.

  We were in debt up to our necks, but despite the impending disaster, by some miracle, by some fate we weren’t even aware of, we got through those years unscathed. The secret to our happiness in those days was not love (we’ve always had that), nor was it the girls (we still have them, too): no, the secret to our happiness was that we had work, that we could, no questions asked, enjoy the innumerable positive consequences of our unimaginable good luck: paid bills, vacations, outings, university enrollment fees, cars, and the certainty that our diligent, determined work would reward us the way we deserved.

  I am at this same place again almost twenty years later, but I feel a century older.

  I hear Nicole’s tears, I’m in my study, I see her tattered cardigan, the discount dishes, and I dial a telephone number and ask for Gregory Lippert. The linoleum in the kitchen is curling up again (it’ll need changing), and I say “hi, it’s Grandpa,” trying to apply a jocular tone, but my voice betrays my true intentions. The makeshift sink is more desperate than ever, and I need to find a unit to stick on the wall. He says “huh?,” surprised because I don’t call him often, and I say “I need to see you,” and he says “huh” again. It disgusts me already but I need him, I’m insistent—“immediately”—and he realizes it’s really, truly urgent, so he says: “I can manage a few minutes, shall we say eleven?”

  10

  The café is called Le Balto. There must be about two or three thousand just like it in France. Typical of my son-in-law to choose a place like this. I bet he has his lunch here every day, first-name terms with the waiters, enjoying a quick scratch-card with the secretaries while cracking hilarious jokes about “lucky jerks.” There’s a tabac in the corner of a large room with tired seats, Formica furniture, shiny tiles on the floor, and on the terrace window a roll-down menu with pictures of hot dogs and sandwiches for customers too stupid to read the words “hot dogs” and “sandwiches.”

  I’m early.

  A big flat-screen, positioned very high on the wall, is tuned to a rolling-news channel. The volume is way down. Even so, the customers propping up the bar are glued to the screen, watching the headlines streaming across the bottom: Business profits: 7% to employees and 36% to shareholders—Forecast: 3 million unemployed by end of year.

  I reflect on how lucky I am to be job-hunting in this climate.

  Gregory is keeping me waiting. I’m not convinced there is any particular reason—I can picture him deliberately making himself a little late, his way of showing me what a big deal he is.

  At the next-door table, two young guys in suits, insurance types, not unlike my son-in-law, are finishing their coffee.

  “No, no, I promise you,” says one, “it’s ridiculously funny! It’s called ‘On the Streets.’ You play a homeless guy. The aim of the game is to survive.”

  “What, like integrate back into society?” asks the other.

  “Don’t be so fucking stupid! No, the aim is to survive. You have these three key factors—three compulsory things . . . You can’t avoid them, you just do what you can to keep them in check. There’s cold, hunger, and alcoholism.”

  “Brilliant!”

  “It’s hilarious, I swear! Shit, we had fun! You play with dice, but it’s a game of tactics. You can earn free meals, nights in hostels, a spot in a heated métro entrance (those are the hardest to get!), cardboard boxes for when it’s cold, access to railway station bathrooms to wash . . . No, I promise, it’s fricking hard!”

  “But who do you play against?”

  The guy hesitates for a second.

  “You play for yourself, buddy! That’s the beauty of the game!”

  Gregory arrives and shakes hands with the two guys (I called it). They leave as Gregory sits down opposite me.

  He’s wearing a steel-gray suit with one of those pastel shirts that always bring to mind a kitchen color scheme, all sky blue or pale mauve. Today it’s waxy yellow with a beige tie.

  When I left Bercaud, I had four suits and a shitload of shirts and ties. I loved it, the whole dressing-up thing. Nicole used to call me an “old tart” because I had more clothes than she did. I was the only dad you could give a tie to for Father’s Day two years running without being reprimanded. The only ties I never wore were the ones from Mathilde. She has appalling taste: her husband is living, breathing proof.

  So, I used to have four suits. Shortly after I was laid off, Nicole started insisting that I throw away the oldest ones, but I refused. From my first day of unemployment, I wore a suit every time I left the house. And not just for appointments at the job center or the occasional interviews I managed to line up. No, I went to Pharmaceutical Logistics at 5:00 a.m. wearing a suit and tie. A bit like a prisoner who shaves every morning to hold on to a shred of the self-respect he fears he has lost. But one day, on my way home, the stitching on my favorite suit came undone on the métro. It ripped open from the armpit to the pocket. Two girls standing next to me burst out laughing. One of them held up her hand in apology, but she couldn’t help herself. I maintained an air of dignity. All of a sudden, a few of the other passengers started giggling, too. I got off at the next station, removed my jacket and slung it over my shoulder, like a trendy businessman on a hot day, even though we were in January. When I arrived home, I threw away everything that was more than four or five years old. Al
l I kept was one clean suit and a few shirts, which I’m saving. They still have the see-through plastic cover from the last trip to the dry cleaner’s. My clothes are like antiques on display in a glass cabinet. The first thing I’ll do if I land this job is get measured for a tailored suit. That wasn’t even a luxury I allowed myself when I was working.

  I’m tense.

  “You seem tense,” Gregory says, with his usual subtlety.

  As he scrutinizes me more closely, however, he notices my desolate expression and remembers how I’d told him that I needed to see him, something that has never happened in all the time we’ve known each other. He gathers himself, clears his throat, and offers a little supportive smile.

  “I need a loan, Gregory. Twenty-five thousand euros. Today.”

  I realize this is a lot of information for him to take in. But after thinking through all the possible approaches, I’d come to the conclusion that it was better to get straight to the heart of the matter. It works. My son-in-law’s mouth hangs open in silence. I feel an urge to shut his lower jaw with my fingertips, but I resist.

  “It’s vital, Gregory. It’s for a job. I have a onetime opportunity to land my perfect job. All I need is 25,000 euros.”

  “You’re buying a job for 25,000 euros?”

  “Something like that. It’s too complicated to explain everything in detail, but—”

  “No chance, Alain.”

  “What, buying a job?”

  “No, lending you that amount. No way. In your situation . . .”

  “Exactly, son! That’s why I’m a reliable customer. I’ll be able to repay you easily once I’ve got the job. It’s a very short-term loan I need. A few months, that’s it.”

  He’s struggling to keep up, so I clarify.

  “Okay, you’ve got me . . . I’m not literally buying a job. It’s . . .”

  “A bribe?”