Max wasn’t feeling it. But he’d cut a deal with Dopalet. He couldn’t turn back now. At the end of the day, he had to make the call: “Mission accomplished, we’re waiting for you.” Aside from the shekels – always welcome – Max was thinking about the bond that this would create. This shared secret would be the basis of great things together. Max is not lacking in ideas. He’s lacking in funds.
He couldn’t have known that the situation would get out of hand. Nor how quickly or how violently. He had argued that he wanted the tattoo done at his place because he was scared that, afterwards, he’d be in no fit state to get home. It was Dopalet who had briefed him that nausea was a common side effect of getting a tattoo. Céleste had gently mocked him. She thought this was his first time, that he was worrying about nothing. She reassured him: “You’re not going to feel so bad you can’t get into a taxi.” But she had let herself be persuaded. And she must have needed the money. When he said, “I’d rather pay double and have a decent tattoo than a wolf that looks like shit but only cost a hundred euros,” he realised he had touched a nerve.
When he locked the door behind them, she had whipped round, startled, but he had laughed. “I freak out easily, I’m always scared someone will break in while I’m at home.” She smiled, completely missing the irony: this was what she had done to Dopalet. She had burst into his apartment without warning and fucked up his whole life. All this because of a misunderstanding. Or that, at least, was Dopalet’s story. Max thinks it might have been a bit more complicated. But that’s none of his business. Max had said, “I’ll keep an eye on her, you come talk to her when you want.” And Dopalet had put up a decent budget to get the job done. Honestly, Max’s part in the plan went off perfectly. The problems started with the Hell’s Angels.
*
All Franck and Thierry had to do was jump out of the kitchen and scare the shit out of her. Max had brought along some handcuffs because, psychologically, he thought it might break her. But basically, just a couple of slaps and then lock her up. Before she did a runner . . . As plans go, his really wasn’t complicated. He intended to get her to confess where her accomplice, Aïcha, was hiding out before Dopalet showed up. That way, Max would have something on the producer that he could later use to blackmail him.
The problem was that, once Franck and Thierry kicked off, Max had not been able to calm them down. These guys must have taken a hell of a lot of shit from women in their lives to be so vicious now. They beat her to a bloody pulp. Max intervened: “Easy, guys, we need her to be able to talk, and besides, we have to leave something for our sponsor.” But Franck shot him a threatening look. “I don’t need you telling me how to do my fucking job!” After that, everything went to shit. What Max witnessed that night was something he wishes he had never seen. Teach her a little lesson, that was the agreement, not launch into a remake of “Deliverance”. But just try stopping them . . . Try explaining to two unhinged monsters that this wasn’t part of the deal. Technically, this means that if they’re caught, Max will be considered an accessory. To everything. As will Dopalet, come to that.
While the whole thing was playing out, Max had time to reproach himself for a number of things. First off, it had been foolish to think he could control Franck. The guy grew up as a Hell’s Angel in Grenoble. He says he resigned from the charter when he got into smack; as he puts it, the chances of getting into hard drugs after the age of thirty are infinitesimal and I’m part of that percentage – until I turned thirty, I drank, I took a little coke, but I never got into the dark side of drugs. Then I discovered smack, I started taking it to ease the comedown from the coke. And that was that. That’s his official version. But, as events around him are taking a decidedly unpleasant turn, Max remembers a different version of the story. Apparently, Franck had a thing for kids. We’re not talking sassy little sluts here, we’re talking little girls. Although Max isn’t even sure they were girls. When you’re into ten-year-olds, maybe you don’t care whether they’re girls or boys. Besides, given he’s thick as a bucket of shit, who knows whether he can tell the difference.
*
Max hadn’t immediately thought of Franck. He doesn’t usually work with guys like that. He’s old enough to realise that some characters are best avoided.
But he had to move fast and Franck was the only person he knew who had contacts in Barcelona. It had only taken Max a few days to track down Céleste. If getting Xavier, Sylvie, Lydia and Vernon to talk had been a nightmare . . . finding Céleste had been a piece of cake. In less than forty-eight hours, Max was on Daniel’s Facebook page, and the dumb fuck had clicked Like on all the kid’s new tattoos. Kids and the internet – they never expect it to come back and bite them in the arse – they still don’t realise that everything they do is visible, all it takes is someone determined to find you.
So, when he realised that this was going down in Barcelona, Franck was the first name that sprang to mind. And the biker said, “A house with a soundproofed room? I know just the place.” Because Dopalet has one great advantage: being a producer, he knows that the best way to solve a problem is to throw money at it. So, the house with the little soundproofed cellar that used to be a rehearsal room – no problem. And the henchmen Max needed to help him out – no sweat, whatever it takes. It was at this point that Max misjudged the situation. He assumed that, having had his fair share of run-ins with the cops, Franck would have more finesse in getting someone to talk. This was a mistake. Franck and Thierry – it was total carnage. They fucked him over and he never even saw it coming.
The other thing that occurred to him when he saw that things were getting out of hand and there was nothing he could do was that it’s not easy being a guy. If he’d been a girl, he could have waved his little hands in the air and squealed hysterically: “Stop it, stop it, you brutes, you’ve gone too far,” and everyone would have thought that was completely normal. They might even have been moved to pity and listened. But when you’re a guy, you can’t do that shit. Either he could physically overpower them and re-establish himself as the alpha male, or he could do what he actually did – play the bored, jaded man-of-the-world: “Easy, guys, easy – we still need her to talk when you’re done.” But if he found what was happening physically sickening, he still sided with them. So, when Franck opened his flies, Max stepped out of the room and waited for it to be over. Céleste wasn’t making any noise by this stage. She offered no resistance. They’d beaten her so badly she might even have been unconscious. Max had spared himself the spectacle.
This was what he had been afraid of. Sure, kidnapping is serious. But if you handle things properly, the kid’s not likely to go to the cops. After all, she’s got a lot to answer for. It’s borderline, but doable. But this – he listened to the sounds coming from the other room and realised that there was no way they could let her go. The thing he really feared was how the boss would react when he saw the state of the kid. But Max didn’t have the guts to go back and see what the two guys were doing. He was terrified of them. Anyone would have been.
When they finally calmed down, it was Max who had gone in to check on her and give her some sleeping pills. His hands were shaking. He could never have worked in an abattoir. He’s too sensitive. She was whimpering, one of her eyes was swollen shut. He wiped her down with a cloth, to get rid of the blood and the sperm. The two bikers had cracked open a bottle of whisky. Max couldn’t comfort her as he would have liked. He felt pity for her. And a little disgust. But mostly compassion. He wrapped her up in a blanket he had bought especially for her and he didn’t ask for help to carry her up to the bedroom. He tied her to the bed – just one hand. He couldn’t take the risk of her escaping. What had happened was too serious.
*
Thrilled with their little performance, the two meatheads poured him a glass of whisky. Choking back his rage, Max said, “You went a little hard on her,” and Franck puffed out his cheeks, “She’s had worse. You get skanks like that everywhere. Won’t be the first prick she’s ha
d, don’t you worry,” and Max thought, Jesus fucking Christ, this guy is the bastard son of Goebbels, I can’t believe anyone could be so vicious. Adopting a sententious tone, he said only, “I hope the producer will give us the money as arranged, this wasn’t exactly what he asked for,” and from the tone of Franck’s response – “He’d better fuckin’ pay up if he knows what’s good for him” – Max was once again reminded he had made a serious cock-up. He should never work with gangsters. When they see a guy like Max, they know he’s not in the same league. They don’t take him seriously. In his defence, it’s not as though he usually gets his hands dirty. He has had precious little experience when it comes to kidnapping. So he had no choice but to take whoever was available . . .
As planned, Dopalet had jumped on the first flight. Max had steeled himself for the inevitable dressing-down. He had spent half the day on the bog, clutching his stomach and literally shitting himself. He hadn’t been so terrified since school when some hulking thug was waiting outside the gates after class to give him a beating for some dumb remark.
The bikers, for their part, were in fine form. Some people are made for this kind of shit. Stick them in the French Foreign Legion and they’d collapse under the weight of their medals.
Max was trying to come up with some explanation that would appease Dopalet. He gets along well with the producer. The first time they met, he thought, “The guy’s a complete arsehole.” But later he realised Dopalet was sensitive, curious, well travelled. Someone worth getting to know. In conversation, he has lots of funny stories and some quite interesting theories about cinema . . . but the only thing he’s really interested in is boxed fucking sets.
Max hates T.V. series – not that he has shared this opinion with his new friend. Back in the day, people used to laugh at soap operas or “Dallas”, but now they’re all the rage, everyone thinks they’re genius. How to kill off brain cells by bombarding them with obnoxious, ideologically dubious garbage in thirteen hour-long episodes. It’s about as healthy as eating at McDo morning, noon and night. It’s the times we live in: people ridicule intelligence. The world belongs to guys like Franck and Thierry, cretinous thugs who think the pinnacle of personal development is a beat-down.
On this point, Max has been honest with Dopalet: “How can a guy like you, with a background in cinema and an appreciation for Truffaut, Pasolini and Bergman, spend the day watching zombies attacking a bunch of idiots . . . ?” Dopalet laughs, he likes to be challenged a little. But he doesn’t react. He’s like everyone else, he has admitted defeat. He’s stopped fighting.
Dopalet told him about Bleach’s tapes. He’s not just looking for the two girls, he also wants to get his hands on those recordings. Max plays the life coach: “Stop trying to get them back by force, trying to get revenge and whatever . . . you’ll lose everything you’ve got. No, if you want them to hand over the tapes Bleach made and never mention them to anyone, it’s simple: hire them. You produce the convergences. Get them used to having money sloshing around. Once you’ve done that, you can ask them whatever you like, you know how this works better than I do. Nothing can resist gentrification. Of the people in the group, I can think of at least three who would be eating out of your hand if you bankrolled them, though they’d swear otherwise. Buy a screenplay from Xavier and the guy will bring you the tapes on a silver platter. Hire Sylvia to be a toilet attendant and she’ll do anything you ask. Pamela might put on airs, but tell her you’ve got a part in a movie for her and she’ll betray the lot of them. And if one of them causes trouble, you get the others to keep him quiet.”
Max may have clusterfucked the kidnapping of Céleste, his skill set doesn’t extend to this kind of operation. But he knows he’s not wrong about the internal working of the group. The more he learns about these convergences, the more he is convinced there is a shit-ton of money to be made. People want to be taken out of themselves. People want magic. They want to believe. They need to dance. He instinctively knows that he could sell them this dream.
But now, with the bruised and battered girl lying on the mattress in the cellar . . . his dreams of being a super-producer have taken a serious hit.
*
Dopalet showed up. “Did something go wrong?” he said to Max. “You’re white as a sheet.” Franck laughed. Dopalet stared at him, concerned. Max led Dopalet down the steps into the cellar. He watched the producer’s expression as he looked at the blanket, the naked body, the handcuffs, the shattered face. Thierry had made a couple of return visits while they were waiting, and the girl’s body is covered with dried cum. It was horrifying. Max was mortified, he had no tears left to cry, nothing left to throw up – he was beyond hopeless. Trapped. And then – surprise, surprise: Dopalet looked pleased. He stood in the doorway, a satisfied smile playing on his face, jerked his chin at the girl and whispered, “It’s her, alright.” Franck said, “Just as well,” and Dopalet brought a hand up to his mouth to stifle a giggle. He didn’t hang about for long, he didn’t want her to come round and recognise him.
Max had thought, I don’t believe it, he’s bound to kick off. He’ll say this wasn’t what we agreed and all that shit. But no. Dopalet had gone back upstairs and all he wanted to know was where Aïcha was. “In Germany,” Thierry said. “But she doesn’t know where. If she did, she’d have talked. I’m sure she’d have blabbed – she’s not what you might call reliable.” Arms folded, staring at his shoes, Max had stood in silence, thinking: maybe I’m the one who’s insane, I must be the last snowflake in the fucking country. Because Dopalet had not been shocked. Relieved, maybe.
Dopalet had not raised an eyebrow as he listened to Franck’s plan: shoot a gram of smack into her arm, as if she misjudged the hit, wait for her to OD, then dump the body somewhere in Santa Coloma – this would be the delicate part of the operation, according to the biker, since it meant unloading her while ensuring there were no witnesses or C.C.T.V. cameras. But he could sort it, he said. When they found her with a needle in her arm, the police were hardly likely to launch a detailed investigation: young girl gets into hard drugs and doesn’t realise she needs to start out slow. The only time Dopalet balked was when Franck said: “I want five Gs right now, and five more after the body has been found and the coroner rules it an accidental death. If I’m caught dumping the body, I want five grand to go to my wife.” There was some argument over this particular detail, but as for the overall plan – that after beating and raping the girl, the best solution was for them to murder her – Max got the impression he was the only one who had any qualms. Dopalet really needed to stop watching those box sets.
THE HYENA IS PERCHED ON THE EDGE OF A CONCRETE PLANTER in which a lone shrub survives, surrounded by cigarette butts. She’s waiting for the dope dealers. In Aubervilliers, they don’t come out until late afternoon. On Saturdays, they don’t show before 6.00 p.m. The square is deserted. She hates this area. Like every area where you only ever run into guys. A girlfriend gave her the keys to her workshop, a huge loft space rented from the city council, she’s been crashing there while working out what to do next.
She’s not planning to stay in Paris. She’s spent too long at the camp, she’s grown soft. Every day, she crosses the périphérique and every day, at the porte de Pantin, traffic is slowed to a crawl by the convoys of refugees who eke out a living there. Though crushed by fate, subjected to the same privations, the expressions on their faces are different. Now timid, now furious, now wild, now dangerous, now pensive . . . It’s impossible to imagine what their lives were like a few months ago – did he go to school that little boy who’s managed to absorb some words of French and now taps on the windows of passing cars? Did he have parents who worried about keeping him safe, did he grow up in a lonely house or was he running around barefoot in some shanty town? Now, he begs the drivers of cars stopped in traffic for food or money. The Hyena has seen him several times, he reminds her of the kid in “War of the Buttons”. She finds the city suffocating. Poverty has spread, as though someone tipped
a sackful of misery into the streets and the corridors of the métro. Paris has become a dystopian piece of concept art, a gallery of atrocities, a daily display of all the things man can deny his neighbour. She used to know how to deal with it, how to get to where she was going, thinking this is terrible and instantly moving on to something else, some other thought. Suffering has always been a part of the landscape and, to some extent, you just had to get used to the idea. But the extent has changed. She feels that to get used to this would be toxic.
At the camp, the Hyena had retreated from communal reality. She would never have imagined that she could spend so much time totally immersed in the group. Still less that she would feel that sense of belonging. It was a collective conscious uncoupling. She has rarely felt so happy, for so long, in any given place. To the point where, when Céleste disappeared, she didn’t immediately hop on a train to go and find out what had happened. Dopalet’s son, Antoine, sent news whenever he visited his father. He said the producer was getting back on his feet, that he was busy with various projects, that he’d stopped talking about revenge. She had believed him. She had wanted it to be true. She had thought, everything’s going to be fine. She had lost the sense of urgency. It had felt good to trust.
Vernon’s departure took her by surprise. Upsettingly brutal, it had been completely at odds with the atmosphere that defined their adventure. Like the others, the Hyena felt as though she was being punished. And yet, almost immediately, she had approved of his decision. She too felt a dark cloud, some as yet unspecified danger, lowering over them. It was time.
She left. She made a few phone calls, found this apartment where she could stay for a while. Lydia had moved in with her. She’s working on her biography of Bleach. She says she’s nearly finished; she’s been saying this for several months. Olga showed up with her bags, because Sylvie’s place is too cramped, whereas in Aubervilliers there’s enough space for the dogs. The Hyena likes having Olga around. She radiates energy. With ineffable grace, she blends barbarian brutality with the gentleness of a little girl. And besides, the Hyena is used to dogs. To this life parallel to human existence, to this effusive tenderness. Later, Pamela asked if she could leave her bags there for a few days, and Jésus came with her.
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