by Mallock;
Then he caught himself grumbling, all by himself, out loud, as he walked alongside Notre-Dame. The drug hypothesis now seemed to him a little more plausible with each step he took. So simple and so obvious that he began to worry. What if his orders hadn’t been followed? What if the Dominican Republic had kept the samples? What if they’d been lost somewhere between the Caribbean and 36 Quai des Orfèvres? What if they were out of date and couldn’t be analyzed? What if the quantity was insufficient? And what if they hadn’t been kept refrigerated . . . Damn, there’s going to be hell to pay, the bear growled.
He had hardly arrived at the Fort before he ran into Julie.
“And the blood tests? Where are we with those?”
Julie opened her big doe eyes wide.
“What blood tests?”
Here, Mallock could have fired. The prey was trapped, looking right at him, in his crosshairs. The hunter’s index finger was in perfect position on the trigger. All he had to do was pull: bang! Shoot a big one right between the eyes. But it was a little too easy, and frankly, little Julie didn’t deserve such a fate.
So the bear in crepe soles lowered his weapon and explained patiently:
“Remember. When you came to see me about Manu the first time, I told you to ask for a blood . . . ”
“Oh, yes! Of course.”
Mallock’s blood temperature fell below boiling.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t ask for the analyses?”
The rifle was up again, cocked, and Mallock felt ready to shoot once more.
“Of course I did. I didn’t go to check the results, is all. But the Dominican authorities did send them to us in response to my request. In fact, we must have received the blood samples on the day you left to go over there. Since I didn’t know what you wanted to do, I waited until you got back. And then, with all this hypnosis business I didn’t think about it.”
“Neither did I,” Mallock acknowledged in fit of magnanimity. “After all, the main thing is to have the samples. We need a complete toxicological analysis. I want to be sure that Manu was not simply drugged.”
“I’ll go down to ask them to do what’s necessary, Boss. It’ll go quicker if I talk to them in person.”
“Fine, I’ll be in my office.”
Then he hesitated for a few seconds. Should he tell her?
“Julie, I’m going to call Jean-Pierre Delmont, the ambassador who dealt with your brother. I’m going to try to confirm this business about a second trial. I suppose you know about that?”
Julie’s eyes filled with tears as she nodded.
“Take it easy. I swear I haven’t had my last word. O.K.?”
As a response, Mallock received a sad little sniff. He was satisfied with that, and went on:
“By the way, call Bob, would you? I want him to come see me in my office.”
Mallock had some difficulty in reaching Santo Domingo. In the end, the ambassador called him back.
Delmont sounded embarrassed.
“Really sorry, Superintendent! That is unfortunately correct. Manuel will not escape a second trial. The Dominican authorities were inflexible. That was the sole condition on which they were willing to allow him to leave the island. That solution was ideal for them. They were afraid of being responsible for his death and all the tourist problems that would accompany it, but they also weren’t prepared to let their territorial cojones be cut off. We’ll let you have him, you take care of him, put him on trial, and afterward, back to square one.”
Mallock growled an oath.
“I wasn’t involved in this,” the ambassador tried to explain. “It was between the president’s office and the Quai d’Orsay. When we met, I can swear to you that I didn’t know about it. If it’s any consolation to you, I even threatened to resign. Obviously I thought I was far more important than I am. My attempt at extortion amused them and they didn’t fail to tell me that. I was pretty annoyed, in fact.”
Even if he didn’t have the heart for it, Mallock couldn’t help retorting:
“You see, you’re concerned about your cojones too.”
“You’re not wrong about that, Mallock . . . Touché! I picked up the little fragments of my pride and brought out the heavy artillery. You know, Superintendent, one doesn’t serve in a position like mine for long without having an opportunity to build up one’s own collection of exotic documents and anecdotes, if you see what I mean.”
“I have a vague idea,” Mallock smiled into the telephone.
“It’s thanks to that that I was able to negotiate those two exceptions.”
“Namely? I’d like to hear a confirmation from you on this point.”
“Well, if he is given the maximum sentence, our thirty years without possibility of parole, or if the case is dismissed on sufficient grounds, they have agreed not to exercise the right to return him to the Dominican Republic. And that is assured; they’ve signed and can’t go back on it.”
“Maybe, but it isn’t going to be easy. According to his lawyer, in this case he’s risking a sentence of five to eleven years. And then we’re—”
“It’s up to you to get the ‘current state of affairs’ changed. It’s in your hands. It would be better for him never to set foot on the island again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t forget that I tried to warn you about the dangers on the island.”
“What do you mean?” Mallock repeated. “Are you alluding to the brutos?”
“Whether Manuel spends one year or ten in prison, returning to the island would be equivalent to a death sentence for him.”
Mallock knew that but wanted to hear it said to him one more time. Like a door that is slammed or a bridge that you blow up behind you. For Amédée there was henceforth only one thing to do: seek an acquittal.
He had hardly hung up before Daranne appeared in his office. He was wearing his bad-day face. And there was a scratch on his temple.
“Do you have a problem with my report on the Gemonis, Boss?”
“No, not at all, Bob. But it looks like there’s a problem with your face.”
Daranne put his hand alongside his eye.
“This? It’s nothing. I slipped on that damned ice. In fact, I fell down three times, just getting from my car to the Fort.”
Then Mallock made two decisions. First, not to even smile, because his collaborator wasn’t in the mood. Second, to offer him a cup of coffee.
As he turned on the percolator, the telephone rang. Mallock signaled to Daranne to answer it, indicating by his gesture that he wasn’t there for anyone.
“Bob Daranne here. What is it?”
Then a minute’s silence, followed by:
“Sorry, this isn’t Monsieur Dublin’s office. What did you say?”
“ . . . ”
“Captain Daranne, and you are?”
Bob seemed surprised.
“It’s somebody who wants to talk to the chief. I told him that this wasn’t Dublin’s number. He said he was Judge Judioni. I don’t know; do you want to take it?”
“Yes, let me do it.”
The rest of the conversation took place before the eyes of a completely astonished Daranne.
“So, Judioni, you want to talk to my boss?”
“ . . . ”
“A real bastard? Maybe, but in legitimate self-defense. I warned you not to pull my string too much. On TV, you—”
“ . . . ”
“I can hardly wait for your counterattack. But watch out. There will be reprisals. I’ve still got some aces up my sleeve . . . ”
“ . . . ”
“Yes, of course. I love you too, pal,” Mallock finally said before hanging up on him.
He looked up and glanced at Daranne, smiling:
“Don’t worry. It’s just a little clarification. The judge di
dn’t appreciate me mentioning a couple of things about him to a journalist friend of mine.”
“Your friend Margot Murât, Boss?”
“Drop it. How’s it going?”
Daranne hesitated a few seconds and then gave up. After all, he trusted his boss.
“Oof! It could be better.”
He ran his thumb over his red and white mustache.
“It’s over with my wife. I don’t know what she wants anymore, but in any case it’s not me. Too old, too stupid, too everything, too nothing. She’s like my sons, they’re disappointed by what I’ve become. With my stupidities, I’ve managed to get them all against me. Great job, huh? Except maybe for the youngest, who still has a minimum of respect for me, the rest of the family avoids me.”
It was sad, even if Daranne had brought it on himself. Authoritarian and not very affectionate with his sons, he’d made their childhoods an ordeal of screams and slaps. As for his wife, he’d treated her the way any macho does. Without malice, he’d simply seen her as a sort of maid with a lifelong contract, ensured employment with a whore option for Saturday nights, plus the quick little blow job on triumphant mornings. Given all that, it was hard to believe that he loved them, and yet that was just the way he was . . .
“I’m leaving this evening to repair a wall that has collapsed in Luc. I’ll be back on Tuesday for Christmas. My sons are doing me the honor of coming to dinner at home.”
Mallock was uncomfortable. Daranne didn’t usually reveal his moods. Should he pretend he hadn’t heard anything or encourage him to spill his guts? Mallock chose the latter option.
“You aren’t telling me everything and that bothers me. That’s why I called you in. You worry me, old man.”
“I hope you’re not afraid that I might do it again, Boss?”
Daranne was alluding to his attempt to commit suicide the first time his wife left him.
“No, not really. But a little. I’ve warned you that if you tried that again, I’d shoot you. But my impression is that professionally, things aren’t going well. I sense that you’re less involved, less interested in the investigations.”
Daranne scratched his head.
“You’re right, I’m not with it. In everything, in fact. The tiniest gesture, the words I say, always off the mark. I don’t know quite how to put it. If I say black, that’s because it’s white. I go to the right when I should have gone left. I even laugh wrong, not when you’re supposed to. Every time, I look like a jerk. That’s what getting old means, sometimes. In fact, I think I’m broken and too old to be fixed. Too unhip to make it worth the trouble. Do you see what I mean? And then, don’t tell anyone but at the slightest little thing I start crying like a girl. It’s hard to realize that you’re worthless both professionally and emotionally. It’s a helluva failure. There, see, just talking to you about it is setting me off again, I feel like I’m going to start bawling.”
Daranne grabbed a big Kleenex and blew his nose so violently that he let a series of farts out of his other end. Mallock looked at him and felt like weeping and laughing at the same time. It was true that Bob was really not with it.
Amédée took a deep breath:
“I know you don’t much like people telling you this, but somebody has to do it. You’re depressed again, Bob. And you know what you have to do. A little visit to the psychiatrist you saw the other time, a few ‘magic pills,’ and you’ll be good as new. So don’t give me any shit about your macho notions. You saw that treatment helped you the last time, right?”
“Hmmph, maybe. But I don’t know if I want someone to help me. If I’m no longer capable of handling it myself, then—”
“Then what? Are you going to mess around with your piece again, as they do in those stupid American films where the cop finds nothing more virile to do than sob and stick the barrel of a gun in his mouth?”
“I didn’t say that, Boss, but . . . Anyway, the shrink I saw the last time has retired, so . . . And then, it’s true that I feel out of it, completely out of it. For example, I don’t understand anything about this business with Julie’s brother.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Mallock shouted at him, “I don’t understand it either. I’m lost. Mallock has been knocked out. So? Am I going to shoot myself? Hell, no! I’m just going to continue . . . ”
Daranne was a little thrown off balance by his boss’s outburst. He sensed that Amédée was sincere.
“Then why haven’t you gone about it . . . normally?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. The way you conduct a normal investigation. We arrest a suspect, we take his prints, we put him under the tanning light, we suck his blood. We search his house and question his neighbors. Little by little, we ferret out everybody. It’s always a family member or a neighbor, isn’t it? Well . . . You haven’t even made a neighborhood investigation, here in Paris.”
“Because we do that around the scene of the crime, silly. And in this case the scene of the crime was an island. Not here! I got involved after Tobias’s murder, not at the time Manuel disappeared.”
Bob took on his beaten dog look again. Mallock felt bad. He didn’t know quite what to do with either the man or the situation. He too had only one desire: to leave for Normandy, to shut himself up in his house and hibernate. His chronic fatigue and depression, along with the confounded tangle from which he’d been struggling to extricate himself since the beginning of this investigation, had consumed all his energy. He would need strength to straighten out the twisted path that lay before Daranne.
Amédée grew frightened. If he didn’t have enough determination to help his friend, if he didn’t do anything, the dope might shoot himself. He abruptly made up his mind. Picked up the phone and dialed the number of his own shrink.
“Hi, it’s Mallock. I know that I’m not supposed to do this, but listen . . . ”
A quarter of an hour later, Daranne, who had spoken to the psychiatrist, hung up.
“I’m supposed to see him on the 27th at 10 A.M. Unbelievable, isn’t it? I will have seen my sons the day before. My feelings should still be fresh.”
“I’d have preferred for him to see you sooner.”
“He couldn’t. He seems like an unusually nice guy, especially for a shrink.”
“He is,” Mallock interrupted. “Now get out of here.”
37.
Friday, December 20
He woke up at noon.
The answering machine was blinking, his inbox was overflowing, and the sun was shining. There are mornings like that when it isn’t even morning anymore. Mallock grimaced. His back and his head still hurt. Outside, the day had begun. The world obviously had no problem getting along without him. That was a disagreeable feeling, even at his age. Why in the name of God can’t we remain, once and for all, the center of the world? As when we were cooing with the nipple in our mouth? Instead of having to keep going on and on, farther and farther . . . as far as the brink, as far as the abyss? Until death follows!
The preceding evening, Mallock had drunk more than usual. And he usually drank quite a lot. But there was Bob’s sorrow. His own concern. Judioni’s voice. And his words: “a real bastard.” He didn’t like that. And he didn’t like playing the informer, either. Two or three years earlier, he would never have made the phone call in question.
Stool pigeon, a little voice deep inside him whispered.
That would hurt for a few days yet, and then it would go away. But it made him doubt. Doubt himself and what he had become. Could it be that he had turned into a “real bastard” without even realizing it? He needed two glasses of whiskey to drown that incipient panic attack. To shut up that big wave of fear. He caressed his bottle of single malt affectionately. In moments like these, only alcohol could perform that miracle. And it did it without asking anything, without moralizing, and without making its patient wait in the antec
hamber of guilt.
Wasn’t alcoholism great?
No, but neither was sorrow!
Mallock regularly found himself caught between the two and called upon to choose. He gave in to sobriety only when forced to.
One does not choose despair lightly.
Already 1 P.M. Mallock put on his outfit for very cold days and went out to visit the bookstore run by his friend Léonid Scheinberg.
While he was in Nazi prison camps, the young man had promised to convert when he got out. The day of his baptism, in July 1949, he’d taken advantage of the event to change his name. This homosexual Jew who was also a freethinking erotomaniac made a very strange Catholic. Not the recruit of the century, the old priest at Saint-Placide who carried out the renaming must have said to himself. On that day Léon Galène, alias Léonid, who had had time to triple his weight since he’d arrived at the Gare de l’Est, had promised himself to do a ton of things, such as not speak for a year, see an aurora borealis, never lie again, either to himself or to others, eat ortolan, laugh underwater, open a bookstore, and do everything he could to recover the lightheartedness he’d had when he was three years old.
And the most incredible thing was that he had kept all his promises.
The little bells hanging from the ceiling tinkled. The shop was empty. At the very back, among the piles of books, stood Monsieur Léon. He was still very handsome, with his blue eyes, his big Ashkenazi nose, his full lips, and his silvery hair. He was short and always wore plain gray suits, blue silk ties, and two-tone shoes, flat black and patent leather. A kind of elegant uniform or a retro look, as we would now say.
“Greetings, wizard. So, you’ve been up to your old tricks!”
Surprised, Mallock wondered what his old friend was alluding to.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Don’t play the innocent and give me a little time.”
“But I didn’t say anything!”