Justine turned toward him with the look of a slot-machine player on a casino cruise.
“And what are you doing with all that cash at home?”
“On TV, someone told me banks are nothing but robbers.”
“And you believe that?”
“Isn’t it true?”
“And you’re not afraid to leave all that cash at home?”
“Have I done something bad?”
“You have a lot more, then?”
The American held his hands about two feet apart, to give her a sense of the amount.
“Seriously?”
“That’s a lot?”
Justine told him it was decent, then explained that she couldn’t talk much longer, since she had to go join her friends who were waiting for her at the table, but that he could call her sometime, if he wanted to. He said yes, so she took out a Bic from her purse, wrote her ten-digit number on a beer mat, and handed it to the American, who couldn’t believe his eyes. In the seconds that followed, he felt a strange throbbing sensation deep down in his stomach. He stopped bringing empty glasses to the counter and preemptively headed for the restroom.
* * *
Having no notion of the complex rules of the game of seduction, the American dialed the ten-digit number first thing the next morning, in a phone booth at a Pakistani call center beneath his apartment. Five seconds later, Justine’s cell phone began to vibrate on her nightstand.
“Hello?”
“Natacha?”
“Who’s this?”
“It’s me.”
“Who?”
“Uh, me . . . you told me to call you if I wanted to . . .”
Her sleep had been too short and the beers too many. Justine closed her eyes and immediately remembered the hoarse little voice like a sick child’s, and asked herself why she’d given her number to this guy, before recalling his wad of bills. Then she glanced at her alarm clock and realized it was only nine in the morning.
“Why are you calling me so early?”
“It’s early? I didn’t know. When does it stop being early?”
Justine said nothing and sat up, leaning on her elbow in such a way as to turn her back to the guy asleep beside her, about whom she didn’t remember much.
“Do you want to go to the movies with me?” The American had asked this since, in the American films he’d seen, first dates often took place at the cinema.
“No, I’ll come to your place tonight, around nine,” she said, with the courage of those who know that you have to burn a little midnight oil to get ahead in life.
The American gave her his address and Justine hung up first, before asking herself how much she could get from him, and if it would be enough to buy the new iPhone 6 to replace the iPhone 5 her father had given her for Christmas, whose screen was already covered in scratches.
* * *
Justine showed up at the American’s place an hour late. She didn’t apologize, and he didn’t give her any grief. With her short dress, tall boots, and black eye makeup, she looked at least twenty-five. As for the American, he was dressed in his usual outfit, but had just taken off his hat.
First Justine walked through the apartment like a prospective tenant, and the American followed her without saying a word, not for one second taking his eyes off her ass. She sat down on the couch at the end of the living room, and the American grabbed something from his caddy near the front door. Justine suddenly had a bad feeling. Fortunately, when the American stood in front of her again, she realized it was only a stupid disposable camera.
“Can I take your photo?”
Justine refused, having no desire to be enshrined on his fireplace for years to come. “Couldn’t we get to know each other a little, hmmm, instead of playing with your little toy?” she asked, patting the space beside her on the couch.
Like a good dog obeying his mistress, the American nodded and perched beside her.
Convinced she had enough information to establish her client’s commercial profile, Justine decided to price her services à la carte.
“You want to see my breasts?”
“Yes,” said the American.
“If you give me fifty euros, you can see them.”
The American nodded.
“And if you want to touch them, you’ll need to give me another fifty.”
The American nodded again.
“And I’d prefer to have it before I start . . .”
The American got up and began walking toward the kitchen. Justine followed him with her eyes. A few seconds later, he came back with a small wad of bills and handed them to her. She immediately stuffed them in her bag, without counting.
In order to reward this good behavior, Justine took in the situation and began by showing him what she had promised. The American’s eyes grew wide. She grabbed his hairy hand and placed it on one of her breasts. At that moment, he felt a pressure through his underwear, and it was as if he couldn’t breathe. Justine told him to calm down, that everything was going to be okay, and started taking off his belt. The American did not blink once, and suddenly saw his pants pulled down to his knees, which usually only happened when he was in the bathroom. Justine found his skinny legs very ugly, but, always conscientious, she stayed focused on her work. She plunged her hand down his underwear and discovered, with surprise, a relatively large penis for such a small body. This reminded her of a funny joke about midgets she’d heard on the radio in her parents’ car, on the way to their summer home one afternoon when she was a little girl. Then Justine started stroking it, slowly at first, then faster and faster. The American’s face grew increasingly red and Justine, afraid he might suffocate, slowed the pace of her movements. His erection was strong, and she had the idea of taking him in her mouth, but just as she was lowering her head, the American let out a gasp that signaled her time was up. By good luck, Justine had dodged the projectile. She slipped her shirt back on, thinking that she hadn’t had to do much, that it was easy money, especially in comparison to the fifty-year-old guys she sometimes had to jerk off for several minutes before they got hard, and who took twice as long to ejaculate.
While the American slowly returned to his senses and his face regained its normal color, Justine went to wash her hands in the bathroom. As she entered back into the living room, she didn’t see him on the couch, instead finding him in his room, lying stretched out on the bed. She lay down next to him and wondered how long it had been since his sheets were washed. After a moment of silence, the American stood up, left the room, and reappeared a few seconds later with his camera.
“Now can I take your picture?”
Justine said nothing and pretended to be asleep. She could sense the light of the flash on her closed eyelids but didn’t react, thinking that the poor guy had earned his photo, after all, and if he wanted to put her in a frame, well, it wasn’t her problem. At least, with him, she could be sure of one thing: there was no chance the photo was going to end up on Facebook.
Then the American went back to bed and fell asleep in less than five minutes. It was the moment Justine had been waiting for to get up and quietly leave the room. First, she tiptoed into the living room and found her purse. Then she made her way to the kitchen and began to dig through the contents of the buffet table. In the top drawer, she found a case containing hundreds of envelopes full of photo prints. Justine opened one at random, and looked at the first image, the second, the third . . . but what the . . . what kind of a sicko was this guy? Without knowing why, she stuffed an envelope into her bag, as if it might be of use to her later on. Gathering her courage, she went on with her search, and finally, in the cabinet below the sink, she found the goldmine. And when she discovered the contents of the plastic grocery bag, Justine couldn’t keep herself from blurting out: “Holy shit, I’ve never seen so much cash!” Then she thought she heard the sound of a door opening in the hallway.
Marc
In the neighborhood around rue de Flandre, everyone knew him and everyone
called him “FotoMarc,” in reference to the rather unoriginal name of his camera store.
In 2014, running a camera store mainly meant selling digital cameras, memory cards, and useless gadgets, and no longer really developing film. For that matter, since people had started to post their photos on Instagram rather than gluing them into a dusty album they unearthed once a year at a soporific family dinner, even digital printing was becoming rarer.
Marc’s world had changed a great deal, to be sure, but there were still a few customers who came to develop their film: the dreamy, nostalgic ones, and the digitally challenged ones. The American, who had been coming to FotoMarc every week for several years, was one of these customers, and needless to say, he belonged to the second category.
“But why don’t you get yourself a camera, instead of buying all these disposable ones?” Marc had asked him one day. “I have a good one for less than 150 euros, it’ll save you money in the long run . . .”
The American had responded, in simpler words, that he was afraid to buy a camera that might stop working, that this way was very practical, with the film already inside, and he really didn’t see the point in changing.
Though far from being a close friend, Marc was still one of the people in the neighborhood who knew the American best, and certainly the only one so familiar with his odd fixation. A good storekeeper, Marc never passed judgment on this activity which had already made him a nice little profit, but he couldn’t keep himself from wondering what the American might be doing with all these photos of young girls. Sometimes, he imagined him alone at home, at night, sorting them into little plastic boxes according to a classification system only he could understand: ass size, arm length, flat shoes or high heels, hair color, skirt or pants . . . Or perhaps he taped them all to the walls of his apartment, in chronological order?
Marc had to admit, the whole thing seemed a bit shady. At the same time, it was probably just a hobby, and there was no reason to be alarmed. Had the American been an artist, would these photos have been interpreted as a body of work worthy of interest? Perhaps. But since the American was just a guy in a baseball cap who picked up empty glasses at bars, it was better for him, and for Marc, that this oeuvre remain a secret.
* * *
A few days after his evening with Justine, the American brought in a new roll of film and left with the previous prints, as well as another disposable camera. Marc developed the film that afternoon and, as usual, checked the prints as soon as they came out of the machine. The first photos he looked at were unsurprising. Some were blurred, or even completely black, and, always the good shopkeeper, he didn’t charge for any that hadn’t come out well. It was the twelfth image that got his attention: darker than the others, it showed for the first time a girl not from the back but from the front, lying inert on a bed, eyes closed, her skin translucent. Who was this girl? What was she doing there? Where had the photo been taken? Was she dead? Locked away? Had he killed her? This seemingly harmless dork—was he in fact a sick pervert? Feeling lightheaded, Marc stepped outside to take a deep breath of fresh air. He obviously couldn’t ignore the questions that assailed him like a meteor shower out of nowhere.
Freddy
In the neighborhood around rue de Flandre, those who knew him called him “Inspector Freddy,” and, at the station, some of his junior officers called him “Inspector Mustache,” in homage to the impressive tuft of gray hair that covered his upper lip and most of his lower one, and acted something like an air filter when he spoke in his baritone voice tinged with a Brussels accent.
Freddy had worked at the Brussels police department since 1975. If all went well for him, he would collect his pension in 2015. But this was without taking into account the current far-right campaign to reform the retirement plan for public servants, and neither Freddy nor anyone else knew where all that would lead.
Freddy was in his office, on the second floor of the station, polishing his new work boots, when his spiral-corded landline phone rang.
“Hello, Freddy?” It was Marc, the photographer on rue de Flandre. “I took the liberty of calling, as I feel I ought to speak to you about something . . .”
Freddy recognized a certain gravity in his voice, and concluded that he’d better take the guy seriously.
Half an hour later, the inspector walked through the door of FotoMarc. Marc thanked him for coming so quickly before leading him to a small office on the first floor, where Freddy sat down without being invited.
“I don’t know if I did the right thing, calling you here for this,” said Marc, handing him the photo, “but . . .”
“It’s always better to be safe,” offered the inspector, who no longer knew quite how to finish that sentence.
Freddy took off his glasses to examine the photo in closer detail. Without pausing, Marc explained the reasons for his concern, going several years back to the time when he’d first seen the American walk through the doors of his shop.
“This photo was actually taken by the American, then?” asked the inspector, once Marc had finished his story.
“Yes, I think . . . In any case, he’s the one who has them developed . . .”
Freddy pinched his mustache between his thumb and forefinger. “Have you seen this girl anywhere before, and do you have any idea who she might be?”
Marc had never seen her, and had no idea.
“Is this the first time she’s appeared in one of his photos?”
“Hard to say. Like I said, they’re always taken from behind . . .”
The inspector grimaced and clasped his hands together. “Do you think she could be his girlfriend?”
Marc raised his eyebrows in a way that Freddy took to mean he had just asked a dumb question.
“I see . . .” said the inspector, who didn’t know the American terribly well, but well enough not to believe just anything with regard to him.
“You think she’s . . . dead?” Marc couldn’t help blurting out. It was, for him, the one and only question that had any bearing in all this murky business.
“Impossible to say, based on a photo alone,” replied the inspector, who, throughout his career, had seen plenty of live bodies that looked quite dead, and plenty of dead ones that looked alive. Then Freddy looked Marc straight in the eye, and the silence grew heavier. “You, who’ve known him for so long, do you think he’s capable of the worst?”
“No, no, I don’t think so. But at the same time, I don’t know him as well as all that . . . and he’s a very peculiar person. He’s always nice, but, well, what does that really mean, after all?”
“Not much, you’re right,” concluded the inspector before taking leave of the photographer.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Freddy called Abdel into his office to tell him everything he had just learned.
Abdel was the inspector’s new right-hand man, named to this post after the departure of Jean-Marc, who had decided to finish his career in the central administration. He was a young recruit who still had much to learn, but Freddy had a great deal of faith in him.
“And what do we do now, chief?” asked Abdel.
“Well, first you’re going to scan this little photo and send it to forensics, then make copies and go looking for the girl . . .”
“Okay, chief!”
“As for me, I’m going to try to get my hands on this damned American.”
Abdel walked toward the door, and just before stepping over the threshold, turned to Freddy with a worried expression. “Tell me, chief, do you think she’s—”
“I don’t know, Abdel. Experience tells me that if he’d killed her, he probably wouldn’t have gone to get the photo developed.”
“Ah, that’s not a bad point . . .”
“At the same time, this might be his way of revealing his true nature,” added Freddy.
“You mean with this sort of guy, anything is possible?”
“Unfortunately, yes. These men don’t always think rationally, and it’s often ve
ry hard to discern their intentions. But come on, enough chitchat! The main thing, for now, is to find him . . .”
* * *
Freddy had no trouble getting ahold of the American, since, after going to ring the bell at his apartment, he found him, like most afternoons, at the Laboureur, bringing empty glasses to the counter. Freddy approached him, introduced himself, and quietly asked him to step outside.
“And my Coke?”
“I’ll buy you another one . . . Come on, follow me and don’t make a scene.”
The inspector and the American left the Laboureur under the amused gaze of the bar’s regulars, who weren’t on their first beers of the day, nor their last. They walked side by side, and Freddy said nothing to him of the matter until they’d arrived at the station, a few blocks away. He brought the American into a brightly lit room near his office, and pointed to a chair where the latter sat down without batting an eyelid.
“You know why we’re here?”
The American did not seem to understand the reason for his presence in this place. Freddy took the photo out of his pocket and set it down in front of him.
“You know this girl?”
“Natacha!”
“Natacha what?”
“But that’s my photo!”
“Natacha what?”
“How do you have it?”
“Natacha what?”
“Just Natacha.”
Freddy told himself it wasn’t impossible that he didn’t know her last name, and changed the question. “Who is she, this girl?”
“She’s Natacha,” responded the American who, for the first time, seemed visibly annoyed.
“You’re the one who took this photo?”
“Yes, that’s my photo.”
“And where did you take it, this photo?”
“At my apartment.”
“Natacha was at your apartment?”
This time, the American only nodded his head.
“And can you tell me what she was doing at your apartment, this girl?”
“She came to my apartment to see me.”
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