6
TALK DOESN’T COOK RICE
Like any good shopkeeper, every time I opened the door to my basement, I despaired at seeing my stock levels fall so slowly.
Colette Fò, my neighbour from across the landing, must have been thinking more or less the same thing herself, because she looked as preoccupied as I did whenever we crossed paths in the lift, each with our big bags. I decided to break the ice and dive straight in, getting right to the point:
‘Tell me, Madame Fò, would it bother you if I were to pay my building and administration fees in cash this quarter?’
The first decision the Fòs had made once they had majority ownership in the building was to sack the property manager and take over management of the whole building themselves.
I had never noticed to what extent this morose creature was a Chinese version of myself. Similarly dressed in grey or black off-the-rack outfits, always carrying a plastic bag, up at 6 am and never in bed before midnight, and with the whole family apparently relying on her with no support from any Monsieur Fò, whom I imagined to be dead or somewhere in prison. You only had to look at her to see that she too was getting no pleasure from the capital she was accumulating; and it was substantial capital, seeing as she owned at least four bars-tabacs in the neighbourhood and I don’t know how many apartments.
Her gaze settled on me, and I could feel her weighing me up as if to assess my future usefulness in the shorter or longer term.
‘You have too much cash?’
‘You could say that.’
‘Me, buy your apartment for market value plus cash less 30 per cent commission.’
‘The apartment’s worth 540. So if I give you 300 in cash, you buy it from me for 750 and you keep 90, right? 90’s a lot, isn’t it? Laundering is usually 20 per cent.’
We also had that in common: I was quick with numbers.
‘Lots of work to make money disappear.’
‘I’ll think about it. 90,000 euros commission is quite a bit.’
And we each went home. With my Hermès bag and my pink diamonds, I had potentially laundered 500,000 euros. The sale of my apartment would add another 200,000 to that; then there was my life annuity which was a work in progress. It was all beginning to take shape.
*
Towards the end of November, I was given a new series of translations in a case involving far greater quantities of drugs than the amounts I was dealing with my bunch of losers. It involved Tunisians, some of whom were based in the West Indies and who were importing cocaine from Colombia – which they were paying for in hash. In tonnes of hash. But I didn’t dare make contact with them as I had with Scotch because the file originated with the Central Bureau for Drug Control and I was suspicious that the guys I was listening to had been recruited by the police to set up ‘fake genuine’ deliveries.
That’s how things were done these days at the Central Bureau. It was the modern way: no clean policing without dirty policing. It meant you could schedule the drug seizures for the tv cameras, and have the ministers pose, looking suitably po-faced, in front of mountains of hash.
All I knew was that this sort of dodgy business allowed some traffickers to live like Saudi princes with the State’s blessing, which absolutely removed any scruples – just in case one day I should acquire some – about doing the same thing myself. But really, what a disgrace, if you stop to think about it, these cops who are paid by the taxpayer, wallowing in the lap of luxury along with the dealers.
With my current business partner, at least I could be completely confident. Sure, he dined at the local kebab joint. But it wouldn’t have occurred to anybody to recruit him for anything. Nonetheless, I kept those Tunisians in the back of my mind. Actually, I was jealous because I would have liked to do it like the cops: work with intelligent people under good conditions. Unlike the clowns with whom I was forced to do business, those guys had taste, hung out at five-star hotels, treated their girlfriends or wives with respect – women who weren’t poor illiterate girls brought up from the bled. Unlike the more half-witted type of Muslim, they did not hold the view that you could never leave the belly of a woman without child, nor her back without a rod. And that was precisely what I found so damned fishy as I listened to the Tunisians through my headphones. Because Scotch, to take just one example – and they were all alike, these dealers, with rare exceptions – was already looking for a mate, despite having barely started to attain a degree of prosperity. To this end, he had been in touch with his Moroccan family so they could find him, and I quote, a good woman who wears the niqab and reads the Quran.
Still, I had the partners I was able to afford, the only ones stupid enough to do business with a woman who had materialised out of nowhere. Besides, they had all worked hard over the summer and were now making contact again by SMS with a view to relieving me of a further two hundred kilos on 15 October.
1 m = 2 × 40 + 20, no +, at 3.5 in 2 ×
Unfortunately, even though I always ordered a taxi with a big boot, you couldn’t ever fit more than two forty-kilo wheeled bags, plus one more with twenty kilos of loose gear.
Where to with the Tati bags? Scotch asked, paving the way for some humorous banter.
I shot back my reply: Tati store – wedding dresses, next to the change rooms, 5.15pm.
I was in a good mood.
On the morning of the day of the delivery, I was called in urgently by the Robbery and Serious Crime Squad to draw up an inventory of the contents of a box, as well as a hard drive containing items written in Arabic which had been seized during a search the night before at the home of two thieves who had just been arrested. Two young guys specialising in geriatric home invasions, and whose modus operandi consisted of passing themselves off as gas company employees.
I sat down in one of the offices and emptied the box, item after item, noting down, as I’d been asked to do, everything I found - namely, the perfect internet-Islamist kit.
1)One text in Arabic entitled The Solution: speech given by Tamin Al Adnani, a jihadist who died in 1989 after fighting against the USSR in Afghanistan.
2)One text in Arabic: The Obligations of Jihad by Abdallah Azzam, known as the heart and brain of the Afghan jihad, who died in Peshawar in 1989.
3)One booklet: The Meeting, sub-titled Rules to follow when recruiting an aspiring new jihadist. Author unknown.
4)One booklet: The Lawfulness of Martyrdom Operations. Author unknown.
5)One CD with a sleeve containing an Arabic text entitled Democratia that included a 120 minute long speech by Sheik Abu Musab al Zarkawi. The audio version of the speech was interrupted by sounds of gunshots and jihadist singing…
And that’s why I refused to do translations in terrorism cases. It wasn’t the first time I had done this sort of work and you always found the same sort of intellectual hardware with these types who had been radicalised via the internet. People think that the translator helps to foil plots… Well, maybe one time in every thousand they provide some assistance in this regard, but the 999 other translations they do involve hours of exegesis of the words of the Prophet (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) written by moronic cretins, radicalised by reading the Quran for idiots. It’s unbearable!
6)A 16-minute video showing jihadists slitting soldiers’ throats.
7)A collection of war-like hadiths entitled Paradise is our Reward.
8)Two photos: Mahdi Al-Yahawi and Jaber Al-Khashnawi, inghimasi from Le Bardo in Tunisia bathing in a sea of blood.
9)A video of Abu Mohammed Al-Adnani entitled To the Soldiers of the Caliphate of Europe…
While I was conscientiously making a note of all this to an audio backdrop of chanted poems, a young cop from the unit – a sweet, sporty kid I’d been working with for a couple of years, who believed in the triumph of good over evil and who always smelt of mint chewing gum – came over. In response to his querying look, I showed him the photo of Al Baghdadi on the CD I was playing; for the occasion, he had abandoned his
troglodyte al-Qaeda look in favour of something more modern, having trimmed his beard and put on some black clothes.
‘They’re nasheeds, a capella versions…’
‘Do you mind turning them off? They’re freaking me out…’
‘It’s nothing weird… they’re ancient Islamic poems, the purpose of which is to direct people in their daily decisions… And they’re full of truths.’
‘Sounds like the stuff they put on Daesh propaganda videos.’
He picked up my list and, having glanced over it, put it back down with a big sigh. It was a typical 21st-century sigh. My daughters let out the same sort of sigh when they see the corpses of children washed up on beaches, forests burning, animals dying…
‘It’s the Salil Al-Sawarim… If you want to know, there’s also a very risqué belly-dance version… There’s even one by the Chipmunks. It’s just a very ancient song with the same lyrics as La Marseillaise more or less… only not as hard-core!’ I said, trying to get a smile out of him, but to no avail.
I continued: ‘You know, these so-called inventories… they always throw up some pretty freaky results.’
‘But when is all this going to stop?’
‘What are you talking about? Don’t you think there are worse things to worry about in the world than a handful of losers with diseased brains looking for their fifteen minutes of glory? Get over it already – all they’ve done is invent a new way of dying that’s as random as cancer or car accidents.’
Conversations with me become disheartening very, very quickly.
‘… listen, I came to find you because we need a hand. None of these dickheads want to speak in French and they’re making out they don’t understand a word. Just five minutes, as long as it takes to translate their rights, and then we’re sending them over to counter intelligence.
‘OK. Five minutes. But you’re going to pay me the whole hour, and that’s on top of my time for the inventory.’
‘Fine.’
So I went to take a seat next to one of the two Islamist-geriatric-robbers. And while I was certifying the statement in my capacity as translator, this guy, taking advantage of a moment’s distraction on the part of the armed officer standing next to him, grabbed his service revolver and took a shot at the cop, missed him, and then shot himself in the head, splattering me with his brains.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
A moment’s silence followed that seemed like an age, as if time had stopped, then suddenly all hell broke loose with hysterical screaming and crying followed by a parade of cops who appeared from every floor. To complete the scene, a swarm of psych counsellors dispatched by police headquarters descended on the Serious Crime Squad offices like grasshoppers.
As for me, I was sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, with little pieces of bloodied grey matter stuck to the shoulder of my brand new crêpe blouse, bought in anticipation of a meal out with Philippe whom I hadn’t seen since his return from Africa… And as nobody offered me so much as a glass of water, in the end I went home.
In a zombie-like state, I pulled on the Godmother’s work outfit of raincoat, sunglasses and hijab – and then proceeded to make a whole series of careless moves, the first of which was to bring DNA along because I hadn’t had time to take him out.
I loaded my one hundred kilos of hash into the boot of my car, and drove three streets away to park. From there I tried to call a taxi, but as none were available, I hailed one down randomly in the street. Between the ones who didn’t want to take an animal and the ones who thought my load was too bulky, I had to wait thirty minutes for a Chinese guy who picked me up along with my enormous bags and my dog and headed for the Tati store. As I was running late, I failed to case the place – a serious lapse of prudence. At 5.05pm, my driver pulled up on Boulevard de Rochechouart on the far side of the Metro tracks which run above ground there. On the way I’d tried to call Philippe to cancel our plans for the evening after what had happened at work, but it went through to voicemail; so I left him a message. I asked the taxi to wait for me with my dog, offering to pay extra because he was bellyaching. I hurried across the area beneath the tracks and crossed the Boulevard to the Tati store located on the other side, looking for my nephews.
At 5.12pm, as I was making my way at full speed to the wedding dress department, I was almost knocked over by Philippe and two of his men as they rushed past.
They hadn’t spotted me. I turned tail immediately and headed back to my taxi, calling Scotch on the way.
‘Where are you?’
‘We’re late. We’re jammed on Boulevard de Rochechouart.’
‘The place is crawling with police. I’ll wait for you further up the Boulevard, at the square. Leave your mates and run up here on foot with the money. They can go around the traffic island in the car and come past on the other side to pick up the merchandise.’
Back in the taxi, the Chinese driver gave me grief about the hairs DNA had supposedly shed all over his back seat. It wasn’t the moment to pick a fight, so I took the dog out and brought him with me, thereby making myself instantly identifiable on any and every surveillance camera. I headed up the street towards the square, and saw Scotch approaching in a hurry. He had some sort of big monogrammed bag slung across his body, bouncing around on his stomach. which ought to have contained my money. I say ought because I was convinced it was empty, otherwise DNA, who was trained in both drugs and currency detection, would have picked him out, like he did at my place when he was surrounded by large wads of notes.
I couldn’t prove it, but I’m absolutely certain that bag did not contain my 350,000 euros.
‘You brought the cops with you,’ I said.
‘I didn’t bring anything. Come on, let’s get going.’
‘We’re not going anywhere!’
I stared at him, not moving.
Scotch, very close to hitting me, clenched his fists. Instantly, DNA bared his teeth and began to growl in an extremely impressive manner.
At last the car made it to the top of the Boulevard.
‘I think we’ll just leave it there, shall we?’
Scotch hesitated, furious, then went back to join his four mates and together they took off back down Boulevard de Rochechouart, passing my taxi on the way, and not making the connection, thank God, that it was the vehicle which had brought me there along with the drugs.
A few minutes later I left, retracing my route back to my basement with my one hundred kilos.
I hadn’t managed to cancel Philippe’s visit. It played out in a fog. He turned up at my place at around 8pm, just after I had got back in, carrying some kind of small rose bush to celebrate our reunion. It was only when DNA started sniffing the traces of brain left on my crêpe blouse that I realised I had not yet changed.
‘Shit, my blouse is fucked.’
My head was a complete blank and my ears were buzzing. I looked at Philippe with his dwarf rose bush. In order to take me out, he was wearing a shirt and tie of the kind you might find in a basket of reduced items at the sales, and I could picture the beetle-wing shaped sweat stains on his back. All of a sudden, he looked exactly like what he was: a cop.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘About what?’
I looked at him.
‘About your day…’
‘No, why?’
Philippe nodded solemnly. A rational person trying to make sense of the irrational behaviour of the person he was talking to: the poor woman, she’s in shock, she’s refusing to verbalise her trauma, he was saying to himself. But I was simply dealing with the morning’s events in my customary way, by adding said event to its place in my mental list of horrors.
‘I’m really sorry not to have picked up when you called me, but I was in the middle of running an operation.’
Faced with my silence and the wild look I had about me, he bravely racked his brains for something to say – and ended up telling me about his failed ambush. When he’d arrived at the T
ati store, there’d been three guys, three Moroccans – God knows where they’d come from – who were clearly also waiting for Scotch and the Godmother as they fiddled with the dresses.
‘Can you imagine? Six dudes in the wedding dress department, three Arab crims and three cops, while a group of chicks are oohing and aahing at their girlfriend coming out of the changing room who’s dressed like a meringue. It was surreal. We took a look around, sized things up. It was obvious the set-up was blown, so we checked their I.D. Three Moroccans from the bled, passports in order, all supposedly there to choose a wedding dress…! They must have been waiting for that loser Karim Moufti who’s somehow – and who the fuck knows how – dealing top-grade Moroccan gear, that every Paris A-lister is fighting over… And for the Godmother, no doubt, who’s imported it I don’t know how or stolen it from I don’t know where. I looked at the store’s CCTV on the ground floor, but there are so many potential godmothers it’s impossible to know if she turned up or not. I’m sick to death of this whole business. I’ve asked the judge for a warrant to track the Cayenne and we’re staking out his place. Next time, we’re arresting everybody.’
Up to that point, on the rare occasions Philippe had referred to the Godmother, I’d always had the feeling he was talking about somebody else. I’m aware that this reaction fits perfectly with the clinical profile of a psychopath: a lying machine, efficient, devoid of emotion, capable of acting in a state of complete moral compartmentalisation. But that evening it was different: the more he told me about his bungled arrest, the larger the space he seemed to be occupying in my apartment – like something that might turn hostile as it grew and grew. He must have sensed it because, with a worried look, he took my face between his hands to kiss me. I tried to force myself to return his kiss, but my body felt so heavy I could barely move.
He stroked the back of my neck then took me vigorously into his arms.
‘I’ve missed you, I’ve missed your body… One month… we haven’t seen each other in over a month…’
He tried to take off my blouse and I just let him do it, limp as a rag doll. His face was flushed and I could have sworn he was panting. Then, all of a sudden, confronted by my inertia, he had second thoughts.
The Godmother Page 12