The Penny Thief

by Christophe Paul

  Pierre-Gabriel gathered all his strength to untangle himself from the wreckage. He hadn’t let go of the stun gun, and he hurled himself at the giant, who saw him coming and quickly shifted, abandoning the bat that Morgane wouldn’t let go of and dragging himself to the doorway.

  Pierre-Gabriel managed to grab hold of his ankle and didn’t hesitate to take a stab with the stun gun, but the giant kicked back and the shock didn’t affect him.

  Morgane took advantage of that moment to strike back and grab Garibaldi by the neck, but a potent slap knocked her off, and she fell into a corner like a rag doll.

  Garibaldi dragged himself with all his might, not quite knowing where he’d find salvation. He had to gain time. He’d managed to get to the staircase, and the bathroom was on the right. If he could get there, he’d lock himself in. Then he could at least recover his strength and call the police. What an idiot, he should have called before going up. Damn pride—he wasn’t usually like that.

  Pierre-Gabriel tried to jump on Garibaldi again, but Garibaldi saw him coming and seized the hand with the stun gun. Seeing Pierre-Gabriel’s face a few inches away, Garibaldi smiled. The other man’s right side was paralyzed and purple. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—he’d had part of his revenge, and it must have been a good blow. This gave Garibaldi confidence that they were on equal terms. Maybe his body was partially paralyzed, but he had a lot more strength and was much heavier, and this tilted the balance in his favor. If he managed to reach the stairs and throw himself down them, he’d finish off his rival by crushing him with his weight at the bottom.

  Garibaldi dragged himself little by little, restraining the threatening hand that held the stun gun, checking that the blond viper wouldn’t attack again suddenly. At last they arrived at the edge of the top of the stairs; one more push, and they would fall to the bottom, rolling and getting hooked on the railing. Pierre-Gabriel—slimmer, more agile, and more astute—managed to separate himself as the giant lunged forward, which caused the giant to take the fall alone. Pierre-Gabriel got up, retrieved the stun gun, and leapt onto Garibaldi, who was splayed on the lower landing. He inflicted shock after shock until he calmed down and realized that the giant wasn’t reacting anymore. He scrutinized the gadget and pressed the power button. The normal electric arch appeared, accompanied by a spark—the infernal thing was still working. The one who wasn’t working was Garibaldi.

  Pierre-Gabriel tried to move him, but it was impossible; he was too heavy. Just as he’d seen in the movies, Pierre-Gabriel put two fingers on Garibaldi’s neck to check if he still had a pulse, but he didn’t feel anything. He thought it was better this way, with all that had transpired, because he’d already pocketed plenty of years in jail. Now he wanted to make it look like a burglary gone wrong. He went in search of something heavy, found a large decorative glass ashtray on the living room table, went back to the stairs, and flung it mercilessly at Garibaldi’s head.

  Pierre-Gabriel was covered in sweat, sitting on the step near the lifeless body of the giant, when Morgane appeared at the top of the stairs, still shaking and confused.

  “What happened?”

  He glanced at her without replying.

  “Is he . . . ?”

  Pierre-Gabriel nodded.

  “Fuck.”

  She sat at the top of the stairs and, in a final sane impulse, started to analyze the situation and its risks. After a few minutes, she said, “We have to manipulate the scene to make it look like a burglary turned murder.”

  “I already thought of that,” said Pierre-Gabriel, pointing at the hefty ashtray next to the head of the giant.

  “And in case they manage to trace it back to the bank . . .” said Morgane, going over to the body. Holding the enormous index finger of the giant, she dipped it in his own blood and wrote PICHON on the wall in capital letters, with the N half-finished.

  Then she went to the closet near the entrance, took two gray canvas bags they’d seen earlier, and came back to the stairs, giving one to Pierre-Gabriel after giving him a good shake.

  “Take the video console, remotes, games, DVD player, and anything else you see that could interest a thief, then go upstairs.”

  Pierre-Gabriel snapped out of it and got going while Morgane climbed up the stairs, stepping over the giant’s lifeless body.

  She entered the office and knew what she was going for. Minutes before, when she woke up from the slap, she’d spent some time with her face to the ground unable to move, and that’s when she’d seen it. Under the desk was the travel bag Garibaldi was carrying when she approached him at the bank. It wasn’t hidden; it was just there.

  Pierre-Gabriel entered as she was opening it to verify its contents.

  “His laptop and some spiral notebooks—it’s what we were looking for!” she said, opening one of the notebooks.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Pierre-Gabriel, as he finished putting away the external hard drives that were on the ground.

  That was the moment when the doorbell rang. They froze.

  They went down slowly to the living room, which was still in shadows, just as Garibaldi had it when they arrived. Pierre-Gabriel looked at his watch. It was 1:15 a.m. Who the fuck would come visit Silvano Garibaldi at that time? The best thing to do was wait, and whoever it was would get tired and go away, thinking Garibaldi was fast asleep or didn’t want to be disturbed.

  The doorbell rang again and again.

  “Police, open up!”

  46

  “Police! Open up, please!” thundered the authoritative voice, as the doorbell rang with more insistence.

  Morgane and Pierre-Gabriel were standing near the entrance under the dim light that filtered in from the living room, staring at the lock on the front door.

  They started to hear knocks on the aluminum blinds, as if the police were pushing on them hard: first the kitchen, then the dining room, the living room, the door behind the garage, and finally at the entrance.

  Morgane’s stomach was in knots, her eyes and head ached, and she wanted to open the door and finish this madness once and for all. Pierre-Gabriel wasn’t moving—he stood there, rigid, attentive to all the movements and sounds, his hand holding hers tight so that she wouldn’t do anything crazy.

  From the other side of the door came a confusion that they could interpret from fragments of comments.

  “Xavier, did you see anything strange?”

  “No! I’ve gone all around the house, and everything is shut perfectly on the first floor and the second. I think this guy isn’t home.”

  “Ma’am, are you sure about what you’re telling us?”

  “Yes, sir,” answered a female voice. “They arrived at eleven thirty, and they forced the redhead to let them in. The woman looked like a whore with short dark hair and the guy, probably her pimp, was limping.”

  “Are you sure they forced their entry? Because there’s no sign of a struggle here.”

  “From my window, I can’t see this area very well, only the top part of the door—but he only opened it a crack, then the door swung wide open suddenly and slammed shut. I didn’t call earlier because I wanted to be sure.”

  “How can you be sure they were fighting in the house? I doubt you can hear anything from your place.”

  There was a moment of silence in which the lady seemed to ponder her answer.

  “The thing is, I crossed the street to listen here in the doorway.”

  “Are you aware of what you’re saying? That’s unlawful intrusion.”

  “Sir, if the life of a neighbor is at stake—”

  “OK, OK. Go back to bed, and we’ll see what we can do.”

  A few seconds went by.

  “Xavier, come here. Take the lady home, and make sure she doesn’t come out until we call her—I don’t want her to be in the way. I’m going to the van to call the firefighters. T
hey’re the only ones who can go in to verify whether the redhead suffered a dizzy spell or something more serious.”

  Pierre-Gabriel took Morgane by the sleeve and led her to the living room to whisper. “Grab Garibaldi’s work bag, and I’ll take care of the ‘stolen goods.’ We’ll go out through the back door of the garage.”

  “They’re going to catch us.”

  “No. I opened it earlier out of curiosity. In this part of the garden, there’s a wall being built that leads to the neighbor’s house. We’ll go out through there, then to the next one, until we reach a parallel street to the one we came from, where that rickety three-story building is. From there, we’ll be close to the parking lot where we left the car. I think it’s viable.”

  Morgane took a deep breath. “OK. It’s either this or waiting for the firefighters to arrive.”

  Pierre-Gabriel closed the back door of the garage carefully, so as not to make any noise, and put the key in his pocket. He helped Morgane jump over the little wall under construction, and they crossed the neighbor’s garden quickly. The next neighbor’s garden gate was more complicated, a maze of old sticks held together by barbed wire. They wasted time finding a place where they could jump.

  When they had crossed half of the final garden, a black dog appeared, showing its shiny white teeth. It didn’t bark, just bared its teeth and growled. It was a trained dog.

  Pierre-Gabriel pulled out his stun gun and pushed the button at the exact moment when the black dog attacked. He zapped the dog in midair, and it fell to the ground with stiff legs. Ready for the taxidermist, thought Pierre-Gabriel, putting the weapon in his pocket.

  They were about to leave to the street when they heard the siren of the firefighters far away. Because they didn’t know what direction to take or where they were coming from, they waited before going out. The siren wailed behind them. They’d arrived at the red giant’s house. Now it was a matter of minutes before they discovered the massacre.

  They jumped over the last fence that led to the street, loaded with adrenaline and the robbery bags. They ran like they’d never run in their lives, and then got into the car as quietly as possible. Pierre-Gabriel pulled away, driving cautiously without lights, while Morgane climbed in the back to get changed.

  “Take off the shower cap and the gloves—if they see us like this, they’ll crucify us,” said Morgane, pulling hers off.

  They decided to go back on the national highway to avoid the tolls. When they arrived at the outskirts of the city of Orléans, halfway home, they stopped at a discreet place on the edge of the Loire River, took the two gray bags with the shower caps and latex gloves, and tossed them into the deepest part of the river laden with stones.

  They barely said a word during the drive.

  47

  “Aaaaaaaaah!”

  Tash’s scream filled the house and woke Pierre-Gabriel with a start that intensified his unbearable headache.

  “What’s the matter?” he managed to articulate with much difficulty. Each of his facial movements was torture.

  “What do you mean, what’s the matter? Have you seen your face? Did you crash into a train?”

  Pierre-Gabriel’s appearance was quite worrying. A giant purple bruise with bits of coagulated blood covered the right part of his face from the cheekbone to the temple.

  Morgane had dropped him off at the end of the street at five thirty in the morning. He was in charge of looking after Silvano Garibaldi’s bag with the laptop and the notebooks.

  At that moment, the detective on duty was struggling not to close his eyes, worried because he’d lost track of Pierre-Gabriel the previous night. When he saw the car stop in the street, a hundred feet away from his surveillance post, he followed the procedure of a good detective: he grabbed his camera, which was sitting on the dashboard, and took several photographs of the man affectionately saying good-bye and stepping out of the car with a travel bag. He was very careful to make sure the license plate numbers were visible in each photo. He continued to snap away as the man walked toward him. That was quite a bruise he had on the right side of his face.

  After a fast analysis of the situation, the detective decided to follow the drop-off car, which continued straight ahead. He’d trusted his instincts earlier, and at four in the morning he’d decided to interrupt his surveillance of the bank tower and come back to his car, which was parked a few feet from the front door of Pierre-Gabriel’s apartment building. He waited for his subject to go inside and quickly started the engine, keeping a safe distance from the car he was trailing.

  The sun was breaking out in the east as Pierre-Gabriel entered his building. The migraine had been increasing with every mile, and his head was aching inside and out. After drowning evidence of their crime in the Loire River, Morgane had taken the steering wheel to finish the journey. Pierre-Gabriel didn’t have the strength to drive.

  As soon as he pushed through the crystal doors of the luxurious building where he lived with Tash, he took the elevator and went to the garage on the third floor, where they had two spaces side by side. He always carried his car keys with him—it gave him a certain satisfaction to feel them when he put his hand in his right pocket (always the right one, by habit or obsession). It was a good car, German, the best model from that year, as it had to stand out and invoke respect. It was the complete opposite of Tash’s car: she still drove the old national-brand vehicle her father had given her ten years ago when she got back from the States.

  How different they were. They had so little in common, less and less all the time. When he’d married her a decade ago, he thought she was a funny girl, friendly, very spontaneous, and intelligent—but with the kind of intelligence that doesn’t exploit others. “Not for profit,” as Morgane defined her.

  His entanglement with Morgane was a relationship of passion. She was cold and hot, sexual and perverse at the right moments, calculating, rigorous, and, above all, smart and purposeful. He’d met her a few months before Tash and thought he’d seduced her with his wit. The official lover of the boss, almost his wife—and, to top it off, the recently nominated risks director (earned by her own merit). The person who could open up the doors to the highest ranks for him.

  But then Tash arrived: fresh, naïve, the only daughter of the boss, and an absolute bargain for Pierre-Gabriel, who was beginning his career at the time. He also thought he had seduced her with his wit, future assets, and inheritable titles.

  Morgane was relegated to an ambiguous number two spot in the shadows, halfway between two men: one with absolute power, who was patient, brilliant, reflective, and twenty years her senior; the other younger and impatient, with poor strategies and little vision for the future but with a conceited ardor that didn’t diminish with age. She was the boss in their relationship, always calculating but not a schemer.

  As soon as Pierre-Gabriel got near the car, his symbol of social success, the emergency lights flashed and issued a small whistle of satisfaction. The latest technology made it unnecessary to touch the keys. He walked around the car and opened the carpeted trunk, perfectly clean and tidy, with his luxury bag of golf clubs on the right and a little sports bag that he’d never used (but it looked good) on the left. Tash went to the gym regularly; she didn’t like golf or his golf buddies. It was another thing they didn’t share, one that allowed him Sundays off for a quick visit to Morgane—after the game, for example.

  Garibaldi’s bag joined the other two, and he closed the trunk.

  As he walked away, he heard the whistle of the automatic lock and went directly to the elevators without turning around.

  He arrived home on the edge of his physical and psychological strength. It had been a crazy night, and he had no words. I killed a man, he thought, although in reality it had been an accident. When he thought about it carefully, the dead man could have been him if Morgane hadn’t intervened twice—what a woman!

  The large
bathroom mirror revealed the extension of the horror. This couldn’t be hidden under a Band-Aid. His jacket and the cuffs of his immaculate white shirt were smeared with blood. Was it his? Garibaldi’s? How could he tell? His pants were stained but his shoes weren’t, though the right one had a deep gash in it.

  He took a quick shower, improvised a home remedy for the bruise with hydrogen peroxide, then took all his clothes to the kitchen and put them in a trash bag, which he hid in the top part of the closet in the front hall.

  Then he lay down after taking two aspirin, the left side of his face against the pillow.

  “What happened?” asked Tash again.

  Pierre-Gabriel came back to reality and sat up with a whimper of pain.

  “I fell down the stairs.”

  “Where?”

  “At the end of the esplanade of La Défense, when I was going down to Pont de Neuilly to take a taxi. The ground was wet, and I slipped. What a bump. I thought I wasn’t going to be able to get up.”

  “Have you been to get checked at the doctor? It looks quite bad.”

  “I came straight home. I was tired. I don’t think it’s such a big deal.”

  “Look at yourself in the mirror—maybe you broke something.”

  “Good lord!” he exclaimed as he saw his reflection in the large bathroom mirror. “It’s worse than when I got home.”

  He touched his cheek, and it was numb but didn’t hurt too much; but the cheekbone was messed up, and he couldn’t even touch it. His temples also hurt a lot, a more subdued kind of pain.

  “You should go to the hospital. I can take you if you want.”

  “No, I’m going to wait a little. You know I don’t like doctors or hospitals.”

  “I guess you’re going to stay at home.”

  “Yes, it would be more reasonable. My head is numb, and I have a terrible migraine.”