“Nothing, I’m coming home. I’ll explain everything. You’ve got nothing to fear. That’s the most important thing, right?”
“I’m scared, Alain . . .”
We’re having a lot of trouble understanding each other. She’s going to need to get over all this, forget everything she’s been through. We’ll have to work on it together. I join the ring road.
“There’s no reason to be scared, my love.”
I’m repeating myself, but what else can I do?
“We’ll be together again in no time.”
I’m going as fast as possible so I can hold her in my arms.
“Do you know what we’re going to do?”
I must encourage her.
“We’re going to start from scratch, a brand-new life, that’s what we’re going to do. I’ve got some big news for you, my darling. Some really big news! You can’t begin to imagine . . .”
But for now, telling her all this isn’t making any difference. She’s still crying. I can’t do anything while she’s in this state.
“I’m going to be . . .”
I want to say “at the house,” but I can’t bring myself to use that word for the place I’m meeting her. Physically impossible. I try to find the words. Nicole’s still going in circles (“Alain, Alain . . .”) and it’s unsettling me. It’s making me nervous.
“I’ll be there in half an hour, okay?”
Nicole takes this in.
“Yes,” she says eventually, sniffing noisily. “Okay.”
Silence on the line. She hung up before me.
Five minutes later, I’ve reached Porte de Clignancourt. I call back. It’s ringing. Once, twice, three times. Voicemail. I redial. Porte de la Villette. Voicemail again. I feel waves of dread. I don’t even dare think the name Fontana, but he’s there in front of me, all around me, everywhere. I tap the steering wheel nervously. I’ve won and I refuse to be scared now. I try Nicole’s number again. She finally picks up.
“Why didn’t you answer? Where were you?”
“What?”
Her voice is vacant, mechanical.
“I was in the elevator,” Nicole says at last.
“Are you . . . Have you arrived? Are you back, have you shut the door?”
“Yes.”
She lets out an immense sigh.
“Yes, I’ve shut the door.”
I picture her taking off her shoes like she always does, the tips of her toes pushing against the heel. Her sigh is one of pure relief. For me, too.
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, my love, okay?”
“Okay,” Nicole says.
This time it’s me who hangs up. I punch the address into the GPS and come off the Périphérique. By some miracle, I’m at avenue de Flandre just a few minutes later. But my heartache isn’t over yet—the roads are jam-packed with parked cars. I turn off in search for a space. Is there a public car park around here? I look up at the high-rises. Hideous. I smile. This apartment that Nicole bought, I’m going give it to that charity, Emmaüs. I take a right, then a left, then go back on myself, scanning the vehicles parked along the street. I go farther, then come back, mapping out concentric circles that start to make me prodigiously angry. Crawling along, I look closely at the cars lining the right- and left-hand pavements.
Suddenly my heart skips a beat and my stomach churns.
No, it can’t be possible. I saw it wrong.
I swallow hard.
But something tells me that yes, it is possible.
My reflexes were good—instead of stopping, I carried on driving. I must be absolutely sure. My hands are shaking because this time, if I’m right, it’s a catastrophe. I’ll be dangling in midair without a safety net. I take a right, then another, then a third and find myself back on the same street, going faster now, keeping my head firmly upright like a man absorbed in his commute or lost in thought. As I drive past I can clearly see a woman sitting behind the wheel of a black 4×4: Yasmine. She’s wearing an earpiece.
It’s her, no doubt about it.
She’s waiting.
No—she’s on the lookout.
If she’s there, parked on a street a hundred feet from where Nicole lives, then it means Fontana’s there, too.
They’re on the lookout for me. They’re on the lookout for us. Nicole and me.
I keep driving, turning at random. I need some time to figure out what’s going on.
Dorfmann gave his instructions. Fontana obeyed. His assignment is over.
It’s not a hard one to deduce: his contract with his former employer is over, so Fontana has decided to go it alone. Nothing like thirteen big ones for an incentive. It’s enough to see out your days, no trouble whatsoever.
And that doesn’t even factor in his personal hatred for me. I’ve tripped him up time and again, and now the bell’s rung for last orders. He’s only got one boss now: himself. No strings attached. The man is capable of anything.
Fontana is using Nicole as bait, but it’s me he wants. He wants to make me spit out my bank details one hammer blow at a time. To make me pay in every sense of the word.
I think he’ll attempt to take both of us. He’ll make Nicole scream until I give him everything, everything, everything.
And afterward he’ll kill her.
He’ll kill me, too, no doubt reserving some special fate for me. Fontana wants to settle a personal difference with me.
I have absolutely no idea what to do, turning and swerving from one street to the next, making sure at every cost that I don’t get too close to the surveillance vehicle again. Fontana must have positioned himself somewhere he can apprehend me as soon as I arrive. I’ve managed to avoid his eye so far because he didn’t imagine I would arrive by car. They’re probably expecting me to come in a taxi or by foot, who knows.
If Fontana lays a finger on us . . . I can already picture Nicole tied up in a chair. This isn’t possible. I’m at a total loss, and I also don’t know the area. I unfold the piece of paper with the address. Nicole is on the eighth floor.
My thoughts are confused, all over the place. Is there a garage? I must not be seen. But what can I do?
I can only see one way out. The worst option, but it’s the only one: go in guns blazing (albeit unarmed), then flee. It’s not ideal, but I don’t see any other option. This trap has made my brain shut down.
I reach out for the car phone but my hand’s trembling so much I drop it. I recover it with difficulty and clamp it against my chest. A space is free in front of the entrance to a building; I pull in for a moment and leave the engine running. I have to call Nicole. I dial her number.
“Nicole, you have to leave,” I say as soon as she picks up.
“What? Why?”
She’s lost.
“Listen, I can’t explain. You have to leave right now. This is what you’re going to do . . .”
“But why? What’s happening? Alain! You’re not telling me anything, I can’t take this anymore . . .”
She realizes my panic and understands that the situation is serious; sensing the danger ahead, her voice fails her and gives way to violent sobbing. The terror of the last few hours returns intact.
“No, no,” she says again and again. I have to get her moving. I come out with it:
“They are here.”
No point saying who. Nicole sees Fontana’s face again, Yasmine’s, too, and a fresh wave of fear grips her.
“You promised me this was over, Alain,” she sobs. “I’m fed up with your crap, I can’t take any more of it.”
She’s leaving me with no choice. I need to scare her even more to get her moving.
“If you stay there, Nicole, they’ll come and find you. You have to leave. Now. I’m downstairs.”
“Where are you?” she screams. “Why aren’t you coming?”
“Because that’s what they want! It’s me they want!”
“Fucking hell, who are ‘they’?”
She’s howling in sheer terror.
<
br /> “I’m going to lead you through this, Nicole. Listen carefully. Go downstairs, turn right, and that’s rue Kloeckner. Take the right-hand sidewalk. That’s all you have to do, Nicole, nothing else, I swear, I’ll take care of the rest.”
“No, Alain, I’m sorry. I can’t anymore. I’m calling the police. I can’t take this, I can’t.”
“DON’T DO ANYTHING! YOU HEAR ME? DON’T DO ANYTHING EXCEPT WHAT I TOLD YOU!”
Silence. I keep going. I have to make her.
“I don’t want to die either, Nicole! So do what I say, nothing else! Come downstairs, turn right, and do it now, for fuck’s sake!”
I hang up. I’m so scared for us both. Deep down, I know my plan is rubbish, but I’ve thought hard and it’s the best I can do. Nothing else for it. I wait for three minutes, four . . . how long can it take to make up your mind and come downstairs? Then I start the engine. No one’s expecting to find me in this car. Not even Nicole.
Act fast.
All guns blazing.
I speed down rue Kloeckner and from a distance I see Nicole’s outline on the right-hand sidewalk; I drive up behind her and see how labored her walk is, so stiff, and as I come level with her she makes out the sound of an engine, quietly and to her left, but she doesn’t turn to look; she’s expecting the worst at any split second, and her stride is still rigid, like she’s walking to the gallows. I stay alert for the right moment, see there’s nothing in front, nothing behind, then accelerate, overshoot her by ten feet, brake hard, pile out of the car, leap onto the sidewalk, and grab her by the arm; she lets out a yelp as she recognizes me but before she can do anything else, I open the passenger door, bundle her into the car, run around to the other side, and get back behind the wheel. The whole thing takes no more than seven or eight seconds. Still nothing in front or behind. I rev the engine softly as Nicole stares at me, then at the car, then back at me, everything seeming intensely strange to her, and it’s hard to know whether she’s less scared now that she’s in this silent car, sliding along like a wave, with me at the wheel; but she closes her eyes as I gingerly take the first right, still nothing in front or behind, and I shut my eyes, too, for a moment and when I open them, I recognize the catlike figure of Fontana a hundred feet ahead, sprinting along the sidewalk and then disappearing. I speed up without thinking, overtaking the point in the street he dove into, the point from where the tip of a black 4×4 as high as a bus is emerging. I trigger the central door locks, startling Nicole, and I put my foot down. The car surges forward and Nicole lets out a shriek as she’s pinned against her seat by the acceleration. Fontana’s car turns behind us and I veer left, already speeding, clipping the back of a stationary car as I pass, my car lurching, forcing another cry from Nicole, who grabs her safety belt and fastens it with a sharp click. In this neighborhood the traffic’s not so bad: everything converges on two large boulevards that thrust into the center of Paris or retreat to the suburbs. I cross the next intersection without even slowing down and a red Renault 25 with enormous chrome bumpers stops abruptly to let me pass. Charles is back in the picture.
I’d forgotten all about Charles.
He sees us tear past at top speed and barely has time to raise his hand before we are well beyond him, a black 4×4 seconds behind us in pursuit. I know it’ll take Charles a bit of time to figure it out, but he’ll get there eventually, and anyway I don’t have time to think about it because I’m on the boulevard, in the right-hand lane, where stationary cars are stuck bumper to bumper in a traffic jam. If I stop now, Fontana will rush us, shoot out the windows, tear open the doors, and I’ll be helpless. All he needs is for us to stop for just long enough to pounce and he’ll take care of the rest, lodging a bullet straight into Nicole’s head to paralyze me, before knocking me around and stuffing me into Yasmine’s 4×4 . . .
We come up behind the final car in the line and I’ve got no idea what to do. Nicole clamps both hands on the dashboard as she sees the line of stopped cars closer and closer before us, and I ram the steering while roughly to the left, accelerate, and head back up the left lane in the wrong direction, horn full blast and lights full beam. Fontana does something I never saw coming: he sets off a flashing police light, stretches an arm out the window, and sticks it on the roof—a ballsy move that says a lot about his determination—and now anyone who sees us will think it’s a chase and won’t move an inch to let me through. We’re being hunted down and the whole city will turn against us. I’ve no idea how (we must have taken symmetrical routes) but again Charles’s car is speeding toward us. I swing right to avoid it and then left to straighten up, flinging Nicole against the door. Her feet are buried beneath her seat and her head’s tucked down, hands crossed behind her neck, as if she’s trying to protect herself from the roof caving in. As soon as she hears the police siren she turns to the rearview mirror, her eyes bright with hope, but the second she realizes it’s a trap, she resumes her fetal position and starts moaning.
As he whips past us, Charles is wide eyed and looking right at me, then at the car pursuing us.
I’m not thinking anymore, I’m just a bundle of reflexes, pinballing between horror and joy, invincibility and mortality, and I turn violently to the left up a street, then left and right again, without any idea where I’m going. The moment an obstacle appears I turn again, one street, two, three, skimming cars here and there, avoiding pedestrians and bicycles, and scraping a bus down the left-hand side as it pulls away from its stop. Fontana is still behind us, however close or far, and I don’t know which way to go before suddenly, strangely, we’re on a one-way street running alongside the Périphérique.
It’s walled in on both sides by parked cars.
Long and straight as an arrow.
One-way, single lane.
We can barely see to the end.
I put my foot down, and in the mirror I see Fontana. My driving’s not quick enough, the hands he destroyed not strong enough. Fontana retrieves the flashing light and pulls it inside and shuts off the siren, the 4×4 sticking to a constant speed fifty yards behind us because there’s no escape.
I don’t manage to keep in a straight line, drifting constantly and hitting the cars on my side as well as Nicole’s.
At the end, a few hundred yards away, there’s a red light where the street hits a wide boulevard that’s thick with moving vehicles. Another wall. I accelerate even faster toward this desperate impasse.
I know it’s over. Nicole knows it, too.
The boulevard we’re heading toward is a fast lane: stopping there with Fontana behind us would be like getting out of a car on a Formula 1 track, blasting our way through the traffic like taking on a bullet train.
Nicole pushes back in her chair, bracing herself for the merciless obstacle ahead.
The rear window explodes. Fontana’s shooting at us. Saving himself some time for when it comes to the collision. It feels as if the inside of the car is being ripped apart and the wind is rushing through the shattered glass. Nicole shrinks into her seat.
And now for the final scene.
Here’s how the story ends.
Right here, in the space of a few seconds.
In the space of a few hundred yards.
In this immensely long, straight street that we’re driving down at almost 75 miles an hour, chased by a black, metallic beast with its headlights glaring.
The image haunts me still, all these months later.
It will never go away.
For many years to come I’ll see it over and over, dream about it, inquire about its mysterious, tragic meaning.
Nicole has looked up again and is hypnotized by our rapid advance toward the wall of cars barring our way.
And the two of us, both mesmerized, witness before us the sudden eruption of a red car equipped with a vast, gleaming bumper and spewing out a great plume of white smoke. It has just turned in to the far end of the road and is driving directly toward us, the wrong way. Two hundred yards apart, our cars are bearing down on each
other at full speed.
I start braking lightly, at a loss about what to do next.
Death is hovering over us.
Charles, on the other hand, is accelerating. When his car is barely more than a hundred yards away, I can make out his face between the chrome bars of his front bumper.
The final message.
Charles puts on his turn signal.
The left one.
There’s nowhere for him to turn, and I realize that’s not the message. It’s not about which direction Charles wants to take. He’s showing me the direction to take. It’s a message: turn right.
I speed up and desperately scan the uninterrupted line of cars parked to my right. Charles is now less than sixty yards away now. His face is growing, starting to fill up the screen. We’re tearing toward each other faster and faster, drawn together into the eye of the hurricane.
Suddenly I see the exit.
It’s a dead end. It opens out on our right a few dozen yards ahead. I yell over at Nicole. She grabs her seat belt and thrusts her legs far out in front, pushing back against the footwell. I slam on the brakes and thrash the wheel around. The car skids, striking an obstacle at the back that I don’t see before bouncing roughly into the little alley and smashing straight into a van. The airbags burst open, flattening us against our seats. The car comes to a halt.
Now that we’ve made way, Charles and Fontana’s cars are left face-to-face in the dead-straight road.
They smash into each other like meteorites.
When he sees Charles’s bright-red banger in his headlights, Fontana tries his best to stop, but of course it’s too late.
The two cars pile into each other at a combined speed of more than 110 miles an hour.
I can still see Charles’s final gesture in slow motion.
In the moment his car comes in line with us, I see it, clear as anything. He’s sitting very low behind the wheel, his head turned toward me, smiling.
Charles’s wonderful smile, brotherly and generous. The same as ever. Don’t you worry about me.
He looks me in the eye as he goes past and lifts his arm toward me: his regular signal.
The next second, the crash is hideous.
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