by Jérémie Guez
I sit down at a table off to the side, pick up the sports pages, and flip through, sipping my gross coffee. Paris St.-Germain F.C. on the front page. A couple dozen million for a young Brazilian player. I like my team as much as ever, but I can’t stand how hip it’s gotten. I bet in a few years there won’t be any more genuine PSG fans, with seat prices going through the roof. I bet they’ll make us play at the national stadium, that piece of shit. Fuck, we came to see some soccer, not the four-hundred-meter hurdle.
“No way! It’s the little Kabyle, back in his hood!”
I look up, and Tarik’s standing in front of me all smiles, hair slicked back, face closely shaven. Seeing him always puts me right back inside, where I was constantly in fear of a crying fit coming on. The fact that it never came I secretly attribute to Tarik’s friendship.
I get up, and he clasps me to his muscled torso for a long hug and asks, “Another cuppa joe?”
“No thanks.”
“You know Ramadan’s over, right?”
“I just had one. It’ll do me. Got a delicate heart.” I smile back at him.
He sits down next to me and shouts at the owner, “Admer, coffee, please.”
“Looking good.”
“You too, buddy. So what brings you over?”
“I need to buy a little something.”
He looks at me, astonished.
“Not for me, asshole.”
The waiter brings his coffee over. Tarik knocks it back in one gulp. “I don’t get it.”
I lean over closer and whisper, “I have to find this kid. His folks are loaded, you know how it is. His friends are throwing a party Saturday and I want to bring a present.”
Tarik stifles a laugh.
“Come on man, this is work.”
“Sorry, I just can’t get over it. Damn, so even bougie kids go missing. But I don’t see how I can help you.”
“I want to get them talking, and I can’t think of a better way.”
“You want to be the man with the candy?” He busts out laughing again. I shut up and wait for it to blow over. He must be able to tell from my face I’m getting impatient.
“Sorry. It’s just I haven’t seen you for a month, and now you show up with this story.”
“Can you help me or not?”
“Of course. What do you need?”
“Well, uh, I don’t know. What do you think this crowd is going to want?”
“Wait a sec, Idir—where’s the camera? You come see me and you don’t know what you wa—”
Exasperated, I crank the volume up a notch. “It’s not like I’m the dealer here!”
He shakes his head sadly. “Yell a little louder, why don’t you? I don’t think they heard you at the other end of the bar.”
I start in again, more calmly. “How about some blow?”
“Are they bougie?”
I nod.
“So bring some X and a few pills. On top of the coke, I mean.”
“That’s fine. I trust you.” I get up and put my jacket back on. I leave a two-euro coin on the table for the coffee. “Put something together for me?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“When should I come round?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll have it dropped off.”
“Thanks. I’ll be by to pay you in two days.” We trade cheek kisses.
“Don’t worry. You can get me back sometime. I never forget, you know.”
“Cut it out with that shit. You’re the one who helped me out back in there. I never did a thing for you.”
“You always came by for visiting hours after you got out, even when my own friends stopped showing up. I don’t need any more than that.”
Once I’m outside the café, I head back to the Tenth to drop in on my grandmother instead of going home. On the way, my phone rings. I check the screen, pick up.
“Thomas!” I say. “Just the man I was thinking of. I was about to call.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. You’ll never guess who offered me a gig.”
“Spill.”
“Oscar.”
“No?” A beat. “Oscar Crumley?”
“Yep.”
I know just the mention of the name makes him sweat. Even years later, he hasn’t gotten over it.
“Why’d he come see you?”
I give a half-grin he can’t see. “That’s between him and me.”
“Fine, whatever, Mr. Private Eye. Just picturing that asshole ruins my afternoon. And you said yes even though he sent you to prison?”
“You know, guys like me got rent to pay. Our daddies don’t foot the bill.”
“Quit it.”
Thomas is the son of one of the richest men in France—an entrepreneur who in just under thirty years has carved out an empire in construction. He’s also my closest friend from college. I can’t remember how we became buddies anymore. I think he more or less matched up with the image of the kind of guy I wanted to be back then, when I’d finally leave Belleville far behind and spend my days luxuriating in Passy—like there’d ever be anything for me to do there besides beg for scraps. I vividly remember the first time we ran into Nathalie, without a doubt the hottest girl in the whole school. Also vivid is the memory of seeing Thomas kiss Nathalie right in front of me during a party at someone’s town house in the Seventh. Wild with rage, I’d left the festivities, smashing a mirror on my way out. I still have a tiny scar on my left hand from that rush of bogus violence, fitting for a teen with masculinity issues. Thomas and Nathalie started going out. He didn’t know she was also sleeping with Oscar Crumley, and two or three other guys, more or less regularly. Since Thomas had no balls, he’d paid me to do his dirty work for him. No balls, but he had brains—probably more useful. I got into trouble, and he married the girl. End of story. Maybe because of this, he has never given up on our friendship, though I suspect he wants to sometimes. For me, just seeing Nat softens any lingering misgivings I have with Thomas.
“Wanted to invite you over for dinner.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Kind of short notice, isn’t it?”
“What, I need to book you two weeks in advance now? If you’re busy, say so.” He knows better than I do just how shitty my life is.
“I’ll be over at nine, cool?”
“Perfect. See you then—and don’t bring anything.”
No worries there, I think, and hang up.
“Oh, it’s you,” my grandmother says, opening the door.
“Well, yeah. I said I’d stop by.”
“I thought you wouldn’t come.” Annoyance fills her eyes, set deep into that wrinkled old face. She is the only one who gets to me. We sit down in the living room where an old tape of Arab prayers is playing, surely purchased at a market in the village back home, volume turned up all the way on a radio that saw me born and will probably see me die.
“Think we could maybe pause it for a minute? I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”
She hits stop on the tape deck.
“Thanks.”
She points at a chair by the window. I sit down across from her.
“You giving me the silent treatment?” I ask.
“Why’d you do that last night? At your age! You should be ashamed.”
I try to play it fair with her. “I’m sorry. I know I fucked up. I don’t know what got into me.”
“Well, I do. Prison changed things for you. Made the condition worse.”
“Fuck, I haven’t had a fit in eight months. It’s gone for good. No more condition, I promise!” I sigh and stand up. I should’ve gone home. Forget it, I think. She’s an old woman. Just stay. Say your sorry, ask her to translate some songs. And then I notice the cassette player and remember the tapes again.
“I have work, gotta run. Great seeing you.”
Outside, I’ve made it all of thirty feet when it starts to rain. I run all the way to Gare de l’Est for some shelter, soaked. I should’ve apologized, should’
ve just shut up for once and stayed a bit longer at my grandmother’s. But she’s right. After prison, things changed. I can’t stay. An empty taxi goes by. I lift my hand, and it pulls over, tossing up a spray of water that stops just short of my shoes. I get inside.
“Rue de Bretagne. I’ll give you directions from there.”
He drops me at Thibaut’s.
I open the door and call into the apartment: “Anyone home?”
No answer. The place is empty. So much the better.
I scan Thibaut’s room to see if anything’s changed, if there’s any trace that he’s been by or somebody’s been messing around. But the room’s in the exact same shape as last time. I pull the file with the cassettes from under the bed. In the closet, I find a gym bag and dump them in. The clacking sound they make inside the bag is kind of ridiculous. For good measure, I pull open the desk drawers and dump their contents in too. I’ll sort through it all at home. I rifle through the wardrobe, jeans and jacket pockets. Nothing but used metro tickets. The zipper gets stuck; I force it and catch the skin on my thumb. I swear through my teeth and punch the bag in rage. The cassette cases squeak and clatter, like they’re telling me to go fuck myself.
Back home, I take off my clothes, put on track pants and a sweatshirt. I sit down on my sofa, the cassettes in my hands. No clue what’s on them—not a label, nothing on the cases. I remember the losers we all used to be, back when people bought rap mixes to play on their busted-up old boom boxes with shitty sound—all light-years ago. These things are dead. What are they even fucking doing in a student apartment? More to the point, what would a kid be doing with them? I lie down to clear my head, to chase away the distant worry that this whole affair is more complicated than usual, and the bad feeling that the solution’s at the bottom of a pool of shit I really don’t want to dive into.
The buzzer for the front door startles me off my ass. I check the wall clock. Eight P.M. I fell asleep on my sofa. I get up in a hurry, press the intercom.
“Yes?”
“Idir?” Some punk’s voice I don’t recognize.
“Who’s this?”
“Tarik sent me.”
“OK. Third door on your right.”
I buzz him in and hear a guy coming up the stairs fast. He reaches the landing. He’s still got his helmet on, the visor pulled down. I wave him in and slam the door behind him. He takes off his helmet, revealing his face: the face of a really young guy who hasn’t made the right choices in life but doesn’t know it yet.
He sticks a hand in his pants pocket and takes out a brown paper envelope cut lengthwise and sealed with packaging tape. He hands it over.
“You’re fast. Thanks.”
“Careful with the coke; it’s pretty uncut. Tarik told me to warn you.”
I smile. “Tell him if some chick ODs, I’ll rat on him. And you too.”
He looks at me, tense.
“Kidding.”
He lets out a sigh of relief. I was right to spell it out.
“Right, I get it. Have a nice day.”
Once the delivery boy’s gone, I empty the envelope’s contents on the coffee table. There are two little plastic vials, one full of coke, the other full of pink crystal powder, plus a dozen pills in a bag whose edges have been heat-sealed with a lighter. I check the clock again. I have to hurry; I’m short on time.
I enter the luxurious apartment in the Sixteenth that Nathalie and Thomas have been living in ever since their marriage.
“Hey, Idir, how’s it going? You’re the first to arrive. My father’s late, as usual.”
“Your father? Cool, didn’t know he was coming.” Thomas looks less than thrilled. I move on. “Your lady here?”
“Yeah, she’s in the kitchen. Here, give me your coat.”
I leave it with him and walk over to the kitchen. Nathalie’s busy chopping vegetables. She’s wearing a black dress, perfectly fitted to her slender waist. Her grip on the knife makes the muscles along her arm stand out. She looks up when she hears me come in. She’s got too much makeup on, trying to hide the rings under her eyes. I never thought she’d be more beautiful than she’d been as a student. Seeing her now, just past thirty, I know I was wrong.
“Hey, Nat.”
She smiles.
“Oh, hey, Idir.”
I walk over to kiss her on the cheek. She doesn’t drop the knife. A heady aroma of sandalwood from her skin sets off the fantasy of a night too rich for sleep.
“How’s it going?” she asks, going back to chopping.
“Good, and you?”
She stops for a moment, stares at the slices she’s already cut, and sighs. “Could be better.”
I can sense a light-headedness in her eyes, the feeling of not knowing what the hell she’s doing here, dicing fucking bell peppers to calm herself down. I try to dispel the bad vibes.
“Smells nice, what you’re making,” I say just as Thomas rushes into the kitchen.
“C’mon, Idir, let me pour you a whisky.”
I follow him out and let his wife, hands down the most beautiful woman in Paris, finish making us dinner, thinking she’s the one who should be having a whisky while I’m at the stove.
In the living room, I sit down on a great big beige leather sofa. On the redwood coffee table, two glasses, a bowlful of ice cubes, and an imposing bottle, barely touched. Thomas sees me eyeing it and feels compelled to state, as he fills the glasses, “Balvenie.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Aged for thirty years, Idir.”
“Cool. Why would you bother telling me that? You know I don’t give a shit,” I joke. “You could pour me Label 5 and I wouldn’t mind.”
He lets out a nervous little laugh, anything but natural.
“You seem nervous. You OK?” I ask.
“Sure, sure, everything’s fine,” he replies, rubbing his temples.
“You get into it with your wife again?”
He gives me a serious look. “She has a lover.”
“Please. You’re not starting with this again—”
“I swear—”
“Fuck, man. You’ve been saying that for ten years. You’re like a goddamn broken record.”
He takes a few tiny sips of whisky in silence, then starts right back in. “I can’t trust her.”
“Got any proof?”
“She’s acting…funny.”
“Got any proof?”
He scratches his head. “I don’t have any proof. I just know.”
“Quit it. Quit it right now. I don’t want to hear your bullshit anymore.”
The doorbell rings.
“Ah, at last.” Thomas gets up and goes to the door. I recognize his father’s voice in the foyer. I stay seated, alone, for a few minutes—just enough time to toss back the rest of my whisky.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Eric. I liked him a lot, back in the day. He had a frankness to him most rich people don’t have, especially compared with those born rich, solely concerned as they are with managing the fortune preceding generations had already built up. Eric Vernay had fought hard to get where he was. He had that upstart aspect to him that betrayed his common origins. The kind of guy who’d order steak and fries at a high-end restaurant. He probably played up that side of himself, to show how far he’d come, or to throw people off the scent when it came to business. I wondered how many times competitors had taken Eric for a fool, only to find out later on they’d gotten screwed. And yet to anyone from the street, it was obvious straightaway just how dangerous he was. Sheitan, my grandmother would’ve called him. And she’d have been right. The little guy who’d started out as a humble laborer was now extremely rich. And it hadn’t happened by accident. Successes like that didn’t happen often in this country, hooked as it is on cultural reproduction and incest among the economic elite. All this made him a man as fearsome as he was friendly.
He came barreling into the living room, all smiles. “Ah, Idir. Pleasure to see you again!”
; “Mr. Vernay. What a surprise!”
Still the same scrapper’s mug, but slightly older now: square jaw, features softened by lines. An old gentleman who must’ve known lots of women in his life. He gives my hand an energetic shake. Grip steely as ever. He winks. “What, did you get bashful on me? Call me Eric, please.”
“Guess I never did get used to calling you that, Mr. Vernay.”
He takes off his coat and hands it to his son, revealing his customary stylish charcoal-gray suit. To go by how his jacket hangs from his chest—big pecs, even bigger shoulders—I’m guessing he’s a gym rat, and he’s probably jumped a chick or two in the locker room.
Thomas slips back into his role as a host.
“I’ll get Nat so we can get started with dinner. Have a seat, Dad. Grab him a glass, won’t you, Idir?” he says, pointing out where they’re all lined up.
I walk over to the cabinet, grab a whisky glass, and set it down next to mine. I pour one for Eric.
“Ice?” I ask.
“Never.” He smiles.
I pour myself another and we sit down side by side on the sofa. He toasts me and we clink glasses, locking gazes like tradition demands.
“How long has it been, son? When was the last time?”
“The wedding. Two years.”
I can still remember all those douchebags in bow ties and custom-tailored suits. I had to borrow mine from my father; it was too big. I anesthetized myself with booze so I wouldn’t have to listen to conversations about where to invest in Paris real estate. I held all the guests responsible for my hangover and the liter and a half of Moët I spewed up in my apartment as soon as I stepped in the door.
“Two years already. Time starts flying when you get older. It’s terrible. What are you up to?”
“Not much. I do what I can. The crisis and all that, am I right? How about you? How’s business?”
“Oh, it’s tricky for us too these days.”
When I think that his company must make several billion a year, I have a hard time believing things are tough for people like him. But figures don’t mean a thing anymore, and nobody really knows what goes on in boardrooms. But then, I turned my back on that world a long time ago. It’s not that I think poor people are better than rich people. They just have other things on their mind.