“Yes, I’m telling you! I’m a neat freak, I told myself that I had to take it out for the five a.m. pick-up, otherwise the neighborhood dogs would do their grocery shopping in my plot.”
“And yet Three-Martyrs Street is one of the calmest in the city!”
“Oh, you know, this riff-raff no longer just kills in He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-An-Idiot, I’m telling you.”
“So the murderer saw you?”
“Yes, I’m telling you, he saw me.”
“Explain to us then…”
“The man in question, after stabbing the girl he’d had an argument with, several times, he came near me, I’m telling you. I was scared, I’m telling you! I wasn’t moving! Yes, I couldn’t move anymore, and you, in my place, would you have been able to move? The man in question bullied me, he showed me his knife reddened with blood and told me that if I didn’t call the police, he would kill me too. And me, I’m telling you, I ran into the house like a crazy woman to make that call. When the police came with the television people, the man was near the corpse, insulting it, laughing, peeing on it and repeating:‘I shit on society,’I’m telling you…”
What? Did I hear right? They’re claiming that the criminal has even been arrested? That he himself surrendered to the precinct? Therefore it is not me, because I am at home, because I am in front of the television. Personally, I would like to see his face. I would like to see this man’s face.
Well fuck, instead of showing us Angoualima’s body, instead of showing us Germaine’s body, instead of running a loop of this old lady’s interview in which she endlessly repeats, “I’m telling you!” show us the face of the man who stole the one who was going to be my corpse!
No? We cannot be shown the murderer? And why not?
Presumed innocence?
But what kind of presumed innocence are they talking about? There’s a criminal who acknowledges his crime, there’s a witness who saw him, saw him with her own eyes, and they’re humming their song about presuming innocence, respecting individual freedoms? Do they think this old lady who saw everything, saw everything with her own eyes, can lie? Were they never taught that old people always tell the truth? Where are we going?
And now it’s our city’s police chief congratulating his men. And now it’s the mayor talking, talking some more and always talking.
Okay, so basically they’re saying they don’t know where the victim lived and that it’s no longer important. Therefore they don’t give a shit, because as far as they’re concerned the investigation is over even before it got under way. This is how it goes here when they’ve got someone in the bag. They congratulate themselves. They have something to sink their teeth into.
I tell myself that in a normal situation, there would have been a detective like in the movies or in crime novels. This detective would wear a beige overcoat, a black felt hat and would smoke a pipe, or Gauloises or Gitanes with no filter. He would have gotten over to the crime scene and, with tongs, would have picked up a ring here, an earring there, a lock of hair or a perfume sample a little bit farther on. And the wheels would have started turning. The detective would have first asked himself a fundamental question: Why Germaine and not another prostitute? Then another: What was her schedule before the crime? Then another one again: Did she have a dispute with someone in her circle? Then another one yet again: Did she have a pimp, a husband, a boyfriend? Then another one yet again: Where did she live?
With this last question, clearly I would be in the line of sight. The detective would show up here with his men to turn the house inside out while showing me a warrant for I don’t know what and I don’t know from what authority, because it’s been a while since I’ve seen police movies or read that type of novel. They would pepper me with questions. And they would see Germaine’s big bag in my home. And they would tell me that I could not possibly ignore what had taken place. I would become suspect number one. And as we know in our city, suspect number one means guilty, therefore I would be guilty, and that’s that…
I want to see the face of the man who killed Germaine. Could be I know him, this bastard kill-joy. Since theTV isn’t showing him to us, I’m going to take advantage of this to claim this murder in Angoualima’s eyes. Yes, I’m going to see the Great Master at the cemetery of The-Dead-Who-Are-Not-Allowed-To-Sleep right away and announce to him that I have finally killed my first whore, that the fruit is now going to rot at the foot of the tree that bore it.
The good news he was waiting for, he will now have it…
4.
I succeeded in starting one of the vehicles piled up in my workshop. I’m driving at breakneck speed and run stop signs without being aware of it. I can see gatherings on either side of the city’s intersections. Heated morning debates. The population must be commenting on this great event. The morning papers changed their front pages at the last minute and are promising to run in their next editions a photo of the murderer, the murderer who has already been put in my idol’s much-sought-after category.
I drove so fast I got to the cemetery of The-Dead-Who-Are-Not-Allowed-To-Sleep in less than half an hour.
The groundskeepers let me go through like last time, when I came to tell Angoualima about my mishandling of the girl in white’s murder. I nearly wrecked a grave while parking. The crows flew off with such speed they must have taken me for a mean ghost, the kind that hasn’t accepted its death and exerts itself to harass the living every night. I even left the door open and started running in the acacia lanes to the other end of the cemetery, to the corner reserved for the vermin the country deems the most dangerous.
Before I can even start reciting a prayer, the Great Master Angoualima is already outside his grave, standing, one hand resting on the cross. His facial scars seem even deeper to me. He is a just a shadow of himself. He blends in with the fog a little.
I have trouble making him out properly, but he is here. This makes me want to get closer even more.
“Do not come one step closer, Rectangular Head! I was waiting for you! I suppose, without making myself laugh, that you must be in heaven?”
“It’s done, Great Master.”
“Which means?”
“I killed Germaine, a whore from the country over there, it wasn’t easy but I succeeded anyway, Great Master. I had concealed from you that I was living with her so that…”
“This is good, and how did you kill her?”
“With a knife, Great Master.”
“This is good. And where?”
“In a street in the Right Bank, Great Master.”
“This is good. This is good stuff, Rectangular Head. And what’s the name of this street where the good news took place?”
“Three-Martyrs, Great Master.”
“This is good, I am happy! And at what time did your crime take place then?”
“Midnight, Great Master.”
“Now, I would like to ask you an important question: Do you, at this time, see me well, like in past times?”
“Not very well, Great Master. There’s this fog that’s bothering me a little bit.”
“It’s not fog, Rectangular Head, it’s my Ascension that’s beginning.”
“Ascension, Great Master? It’s marvelous, Great Master!”
“You know what it means for me?”
“No, Great Master, I don’t know.”
“It means I must reach Heaven for the final judgment. But I have good lawyers, and apparently they’ve never lost a case up there…”
“This is marvelous, Great Master… !”
“Yes, but I must get there without reproaching myself with the fact that a cretin on earth failed to tell me something…”
“Great Master, in fact…”
“Shut up! Did you turn off the television before coming here?”
“No Great Master, why?”
“Who do you think I am, Rectangular Head?”
“Great Master, I…”
“Silence! You’re not the one who killed that girl! You
’re no more respectable than the scum who wanted to usurp my name and my acts in the old days!”
“Great Master, I would like to make it clear that…”
“What do you think?You think you have enough balls to take someone’s life away?”
“Great Master, things have been…”
“I don’t want to hear a thing! Didn’t I tell you that you were just an imbecile, a cretin, a good-for-nothing?”
“You have told me so, Great Master.”
“You think I’m dead, but I still keep an eye on all the crimes in this city! No criminal can raise his hand to strike his victim without the Eternal Angoualima feeling it deep in his grave!”
“Great Master, I had planned everything, but someone beat me to it, I swear to you…”
“Planned everything! And still you’re not the one who killed!”
“Great Master, I think I know now that it was your hand that struck. It’s wonderful! So you can still kill even after your death and…”
“Silence! Do you really want to piss me off?”
“No, Great Master…”
“What do you think? If I could still strike I would start with you, Rectangular Head!”
“Great Master…”
“You’re just a liar, that’s your real profession! You thought you could conceal this one from me? You have lived with this girl for a month for this result!”
“It was a way to…”
“You should have killed as early as the first day she offered to come stay with you! Now I’m going to tell you who killed her, that girl…”
“Great Master…”
“While you were going around in circles at home like a shithead for the entire afternoon, the real criminal came to see me. Yes, he was here, at the same spot as you are. And I am telling you that when I saw him, I felt his determination. He showed me a double-edged knife. He picked up some dirt from my grave and pushed it into his overcoat pocket. What determination! And he left, telling me it would be that night at midnight. Now here at least is a man of his word! He wasn’t one to come here often, but he knew what he wanted.”
“Great Master, do I know him, this guy?”
“Imbecile, what is your problem? He knew that you were giving shelter to his future victim because he followed this girl and saw her get out of the cab in front of your lot!”
“Great Master, it’s one of my neighbors, then?”
“Idiot! Do you even know who lives around you? So don’t go putting such hypotheses forward!”
“It was only to find out, Great Master.”
“I’ve told you to stop repeating Great Master like a parrot! You’re not my student and don’t ever come to see me again, it’s over!”
“Great Master…”
“I said it’s over! Go! Beat it!”
I’m about to head back, Angoualima lets out a demonic laugh that gives me goosebumps. Darkness has fallen above his grave.
I hear him tell me:
“You have no personality, that’s your problem, Rectangular Head! You want to know who stole your murder? Don’t look too far, it is indeed this man who preferred surrendering to the police. He’s a courageous man who carried out his objective all the way to the end. The whore had told you about him several times, this potbellied railroad worker, with a toothbrush-shaped mustache, she said, and who called her all kinds of names, threatened her if she didn’t bark like an Alsatian or a bulldog, yes he is indeed the murderer. This guy has never worked for the railroads. He’s a chap from the country over there who resented your Germaine for bringing in other girls from over there to be whores over here. You knew nothing about the girl who lived with you, there’s your mistake. You thought you were the master of everything. Germaine was not any old girl. She was a fighter. She ran a small prostitution network, and she never told you. She concealed her game by playing the enticer at the Open Air restaurant. That was so she could keep better watch over the girls in her network, with the restaurant proprietress working as an accomplice and keeping an account of the take the whores would bring in every morning. Your Germaine told you that everything had been stolen, her stuff, her money? It’s true, but it wasn’t her girlfriends who stole everything from her, it was this fake railroad worker, her murderer…”
“Great Master!”
“Now you can decamp and tell yourself one thing: You will never be a criminal. And if you ever become one in spite of everything, I promise you I will resuscitate myself to burn you with hell’s flames. Leave this job to others and keep on banging on the bodies of this city’s damaged cars like a shithead, that’s all you’re good for. Even if you come back in front of my grave some day, you will no longer see me appear as I did today, I am now going to rest and keep on shitting on society…”
The Great Master disappeared this time. Forever, I am sure. I didn’t recognize his voice when he uttered his last words. The timbre was muffled, as if someone was using a pillowcase to keep him from breathing. He had to shout to make himself heard…
The fog became thicker and thicker. Thunder rumbled and it’s now raining heavily.
I sit down and cry on the grave of my idol, whom I will never see again…
African Psycho Page 13