The Faces of God

by Mallock;

  Snowplows were already at work on the Quai Saint-Barnard, pushing the snow onto the sidewalks and scattering generous amounts of salt. He was glad he hadn’t taken his car. But dear God, why had he told Didier that Amélie was better, that she would be able to describe her attacker? Why, of all people, had he said that to Didier? What a fool!

  His heart pounded and his breathing made him regret the hours spent sitting and smoking Coronas. Fifteen minutes later the hospital was in view. He slowed down. He needed to prepare himself for battle, regain his strength, his breath, his clear-headedness.

  Mallock was just about to enter the building when two police cars caught up with him and smashed into one another, the first one crashing into the steps of the main entrance.

  “Superintendent Mallock! Who contacted you? We just got a call. The Makeup Artist has been seen . . . ”

  The young inspector’s face was red with cold.

  “Let’s go. Just follow us!”

  Mallock ran for the elevator in the third building. Amélie’s room was on the second floor, in Doctor Ménard’s unit. Inside, on the ventilator, the young woman looked like she was sleeping, protected from the outside world by the depth of her dreams. On her chest the Makeup Artist had left a red carnation and a letter. Had he come all this way, taken such a huge risk, just to leave a flower and a note?

  Mallock moved forward and opened the envelope.

  Neither alive nor dead. That suits me fine. Sleep.

  Stay between the sky and the earth, Heaven and Hell, heat and ice

  In this fleeting eternity.

  Where your lips breathe, your marble sweats,

  And I feared the worst.

  You live; good.

  I, the great “not even,” the pearl diver,

  I would have accomplished the essential and the substantial.

  Brought back, from God, the eyes, the mouth, and the broken nose.

  Holding my breath, I have penetrated caverns of flesh.

  An esoteric cannibal, I have tasted the ineffable bitterness of spiritual meats.

  Here below, I will miss only you, and the wind in the streets.

  The face of God? I have seen it, and it is suffocating.

  It is the face of a child.

  Mallock didn’t waste time analyzing the killer’s prose. Twenty minutes later he pulled up in one of the police cars at the little square in Le Marais. The pharmacy wasn’t open yet. He had called Francis and Ken, who were waiting for him outside. They were both covered with snow.

  “That was fast! What’s going on, boss?”

  “We’re here to arrest the Makeup Artist. I thought that might interest you.”

  “But how did you—”

  “There isn’t time. I’ll explain later. Let’s go.”

  Like most of the buildings in Le Marais, the one Amélie and the Makeup Artist lived in didn’t have an elevator. They pounded up the stairs, Mallock in the lead. Much, much later, Ken and Francis would tell their grandchildren for the thousandth time about how cold and snowy it had been on the famous day they arrested one of the greatest criminals of all time.

  When they hit the third floor, the smell of leek soup—which must have been from the previous evening—suddenly made the adventure seem a bit more commonplace. They cursed the anonymous housewife who had decided to stink up the stairwell on that particular day. Reaching the top floor, Mallock missed a step and let out an oath.

  “Get ready.”

  “Should we knock?”

  “Nope. We’re breaking the door down.”

  Accompanying his words with action just like in the movies, Mallock smashed the lock off the door with a violent kick. Behind it was a second door, this one armored. An alphanumeric keypad on the wall next to it waited for the correct code. Mallock examined it while Ken called the station for an emergency locksmith. Mallock punched in three names before hitting on the right one. It was an image from his last dream, one that made his throat tighten and whisper the word: Julie.

  The admiring, lovestruck look that had come across the Makeup Artist’s face when he saw her standing next to Amédée.

  “Are you going to tell us how you figured that out?”

  “No, I can’t. But we can be on our guard. There’s a monster hiding behind this door. Get out your Pythons and shoot on sight. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  Their superintendent’s face and the deadly seriousness in his voice left no room for doubt. Ken and Francis both checked the content of their cylinders, more out of nervous habit than because they really needed to. Every police officer knows perfectly well how many bullets he has in his gun. If he doesn’t, he should find a new job.

  “Go on three. Me first, Ken second, and Francis covering. One, two, three.”

  There was nothing special about the apartment. It was clean and tidy. Ordinary. A large room that served as both living and dining area; a small tiled kitchen, and a tiny bathroom. The Makeup Artist wasn’t there. His absence frightened Mallock. His gaze swept the room. A bulky table, two rustic chairs, and a superb chest of drawers that had apparently lost its marble top—maybe broken during a move, he thought to himself. At the far end of the room, to the right, opposite the window, was a door. Behind it they found a large office filled with computers, printers, enlargers, and screens.

  Francis sat down in front of the main unit.

  “Should I, chief?”

  “No, wait. The suspect isn’t here. We need two witnesses.”

  Three minutes later Francis came back with two neighbors, who were openmouthed and visibly stunned by the young assistant pharmacist’s activities.

  “I would be shocked if he’d done anything. He’s a very nice boy; very ordinary, Superintendent.”

  Mallock turned to Francis, who was waiting. “Go ahead. We’ll need all the information we can get to find him.”

  Francis pulled a chair on wheels up to the computer. “Look, there are only two files, but they’re super heavy.”

  “Can you open them?”

  “I’ll try.”

  They spent the next few minutes trying various codes. It was Francis who finally hit on the right one: 000. The Makeup Artist hadn’t exactly given it a lot of thought. Unless he didn’t really think the two documents in the file were worth protecting. The first one was a long poem. The other file was much heavier.

  “Almost a terabyte,” announced Francis. “999 gigabytes exactly. This guy’s a fucking maniac.”

  “Open it.”

  The second file was called “Faces of God.”

  Inside, the first set contained all of the victim photos taken using the famous tripod, still in their untreated format, not touched up at all. Two things made these portraits special. The makeup, of course, but also the light that illuminated the faces themselves. A kind of aura, a halo, that no flash or light bulb could simulate. Mallock didn’t try to figure it out.

  “Is that all he has?”

  Francis opened the file marked “Final.” This one was more complicated; reading it required a whole series of programs. Luckily, the young lieutenant knew what he was doing. Two minutes later the incredible quest of the Makeup Artist began scrolling past the eyes of the three men.

  Every face of every victim of the whole line of Makeup Artists was there, but they were arranged in a specific order and had been retouched. A morphing program had been used to soften the transition from one face to the next, and the result was fascinating. Played back in a loop, the faces seemed to melt into one another. Francis, who was very familiar with this kind of programming, had a connoisseur’s appreciation of it.

  “Fantastic work,” he murmured.

  God made us in His image, and the Makeup Artists had believed that it was possible to follow the opposite route to find the face of God. To do that, they had chosen th
eir victims—mostly women—for their resemblance to what they considered the divine.

  Suddenly, Mallock and his lieutenants realized where the animation between the different visuals was leading. And the miracle happened.

  They were no longer looking at a stream of similar faces, but a single face formed from the sum of all the others. And what a face! Francis tried to speak, but he couldn’t get the words out. A benevolent spirituality and a terrifying kind of power radiated from what they were seeing.

  Nothing else existed anymore except that look and those features.

  Outside, the wind and the snow had joined forces to shake the buildings. Windows clattered open. The vibrations coming from the computer seemed to be trying to push the face out of the screen, to help it escape and fill the room, and Paris, and the whole universe. Covered in cold sweat, they shivered, powerless, motionless, their hearts pounding wildly.

  “Is that God’s face?” asked Ken, with something like a sob.

  No one dared, or wanted, to stop the machine. They stood frozen, openmouthed, their eyes full of tears.

  “My God,” whispered Mallock.

  He was the first one to look away.

  42.

  The final reversal

  During the seventy-two hours that followed, every police officer, legal expert, and journalist in Paris moved heaven and earth to get into the Makeup Artist’s lair for even a second. Mallock’s investigation was described in the minutest detail in the papers, turning him into a national hero. The accolades, coming from the same people who had tried to destroy him, were greeted by Amédée with utter contempt.

  He had only one thing on his mind: two days after the guilty party had been identified he was still at large, and only when he had been captured would Mallock relax. Until he locked him up or gunned him down, he could neither rest nor think about anything else.

  They had found the photo of Julie, and Mallock, his fears confirmed, had taken drastic steps.

  “I don’t give a shit what you or the big bosses think. You’re getting out of here and that’s final. Take Jules as a bodyguard. One condition: don’t tell anyone where you’re hiding.”

  “But it’s disgraceful. I—”

  “It’s nothing of the kind. This guy is too dangerous. We don’t even know where he is, and you’re his next victim. I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

  “So you care about little old Julie after all, Superintendent?”

  “What do you think, you little idiot?” Mallock barked.

  He knew that sometimes you couldn’t hold back with the people you loved, especially during the good times.

  He went to Didier Dôthem’s apartment very early the next morning after a sleepless night, accompanied by a dozen men, to carry away everything that might possibly yield clues or proof: all the computer equipment and backup systems, plus the contents of every closet, drawer, and garbage can. The rest was left in situ to await the specialists.

  And then another nightmare began.

  Even though every police force in Europe had set out the widest net ever conceived to trap a criminal, blocking train stations and airports. Even though the surveillance system in France had been maintained and expanded. Even though multiple photographs of Dôthem were on the front pages of every newspaper in the country. Even though they had mobilized every yokel in every corner of every shithole town. Twelve days after discovering the killer’s hiding place and his identity, Mallock and his team were still in the same place. There was no trace of the Makeup Artist, not a single tangible sign. The monster had well and truly vanished off the face of the Earth.

  “Well, shit! There’s never been this kind of manhunt for anyone before. He can’t get away,” grumbled Ken, whose rage had been building slowly but surely.

  “A few more days and the press will eat us alive,” said Bob, who for his part had become much more cheerful. He seemed to be getting real pleasure out of the search operations. Even though they’d been unsuccessful so far, like a good hunter he appreciated the scenery and the outdoor exercise.

  Mallock had only one worry. “I don’t give a shit about the press. But if he starts up again . . . ”

  “What does your . . . intuition say?” ventured Francis—who had, just yesterday, decided to go by the name “Frank,” with a k.

  “There’s no particular reason!” he had barked. “Robert goes by Bob! And ‘Francis’ sounds stupid! I’m just tired of it, okay?”

  Childish, Mallock had said to himself. As if this were any time to get all fussy over a name.

  For a month now, the setting up of the dragnet and the fantastical reports coming in from all over France had taken up all his attention. The monster had taken the ferry to Corsica. He’d been officially seen in Marseille two days ago. He was in German Switzerland; at the top of the Eiffel Tower; in the Black Forest; on a billionaire’s yacht off Saint Martin.

  Every time a sighting was reported Mallock had to check into it, to the detriment of more creative thought. Uncon­sciously he had disconnected himself from the hell that reigned inside the Makeup Artist’s head, happy to be finished with all the drugs and the nightmares. But he must have done it too soon.

  Now, realizing this, he decided to go home early.

  He poured himself a glass of his favorite whiskey and lit up a double Corona. Then he watched the sunset, his gaze lost somewhere deep inside himself, in that place where the universe according to Mallock was made and unmade. A fragile heap of feelings and traces, of plastic objects. Of illusions, impulses, and fears. In the deepest part of himself, where the always-dark sky was forever lapped by icy waves. Within his very core, in search of vestiges of the essential, scraps of truth clinging to rotted masts, a shred of reality on the rafts of fortune. Even deeper, in a sort of intoxicating free dive, he traveled immense spaces enclosed by gigantic walls. At the center he saw a pool of translucent water, and at the bottom of it, a marble tomb. The specific shape of the sepulcher reminded him that he was far from being all-knowing.

  The next morning he set out for the little square. It was January 30th, and temperatures had gotten milder. His experience of the night before had made him sleep until nine o’clock. As he approached the pharmacy, his back gave a twinge. He looked for a bench to sit down. You can never argue with your own vertebrae.

  It was the last day of the month, and city employees were taking down the big blue spruce. They were using long rakes to tear off the tree’s flocking, which was made of several layers of vinyl adhesive mixed with shredded cotton/rayon fabric. It was sad to see such a beautiful tree being skinned alive. The little Styrofoam angels decorating the tree were falling to the ground, one after another.

  There were still pretty shades of green under the spruce’s flocking. They could have replanted it. But two gardeners approached the tree in cherry-picker baskets and began cutting off its branches. Mankind has a strange way of thanking the plants and animals that make life more beautiful.

  Amédée turned back toward the pharmacy building and looked up at the apartment’s three windows.

  The small one on the left corresponded to the bathroom, right next to the front door. The two other, larger ones were the living room and office windows, respectively. Nothing to report. Mallock took out his cigar case and selected an Especial no. 1. He lit it without taking his eyes off the windows. What was he hoping to learn from these old dormers?

  Time passed. It could have been a minute or an hour; Mallock couldn’t tell. And then suddenly, everything was clear. Slightly stiff from sitting for so long, he stood up and went into the building. He broke the police tape sealing off the Makeup Artist’s door.

  As required by procedure, the main pieces of evidence had been removed from the apartment and stored in a safe place. He’d taken charge of that himself, with his team and the crime-scene techs. Otherwise, after having taken all the necessary photos and sampl
es, dusted for every possible fingerprint, and confiscated objects and documents, the Criminal Investigation Division normally used a specialized Parisian municipal cleaning service to scrub everything, erase the smallest trace of blood and violence, and make the physical memory of the murders perpetrated on these premises disappear forever. Next, more often than not, the place would be resold or rented out and, in time, forgotten.

  Here, even though it was practically empty, after the various visits from the superintendent and his men the apartment had been left as it was. The request had come from the great Mallock himself, who, in his wisdom, had given the famous and pithy explanation: “You never know.”

  Amédée walked quickly into the other room, the office. Looking at the window, he breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t the only other room, after all. There was one more. And then he knew he had finally won. There would be no more killings.

  He started playing a bizarre game. Like an Indian on the warpath he crouched on the floor to observe any traces there, then began tapping on the walls.

  A few minutes later he gave a triumphant shout. The opening mechanism was perfectly hidden, and there would have been almost no chance of finding the concealed room without really searching for it.

  Three facts had put Mallock on the trail of this secret room, the Makeup Artist’s studio. One was the permanent presence of his mother. How had he been able to conduct all his rituals without having a hidey-hole? Another fact was the absence of icons and the originals of the photos Dôthem had digitized on the computer. There was no way he would have been separated from them when they meant to much to him. And finally, there was the location of the office window.

  Seen from the outside, there were at least ten feet unaccounted for between the office window and the façade of the next building to the left. But inside the office itself, the wall was only a foot to the right of that same window.