Eyes Full of Empty

by Jérémie Guez

  Eve dives in first. “Arthur was…Thibaut’s boyfriend. He contacted me last night. Thibaut had told him about me.”

  Thibaut never mentioned Arthur on the tapes. I turn to him. “Well?”

  He makes up his mind to speak at last. His voice sounds worried. I get the feeling he might break out blubbering any minute. “We were supposed to go away together. We’d bought our plane tickets. The day we were supposed to leave, I was going to meet him at the airport but he didn’t show up.”

  “Go where?”

  “A little tour around South America.”

  Poor dumb fucks thought they were adventurers. The kind of guys you’d find wandering around Ciudad Juárez at three in the morning looking for a karaoke bar. I’m thinking it’s a good thing this trip never happened. It wouldn’t have ended well.

  “I haven’t heard from him since.”

  I feel bad for Arthur. He’s one of those people who don’t believe evil exists. A vast club whose members I keep running into day after day. Always thinking everything’s going to work out just fine. They haven’t seen what I’ve seen. Usually when I meet them, they’ve just gotten booted out on their asses from this fraternity of the gullible and are frantically looking around for an instruction manual that doesn’t exist.

  “Not a word?” I ask, to be sure he’s not hiding anything.

  “No.” He doesn’t sound like he’s lying.

  “His phone?”

  “Voice mail.”

  “Was he acting funny before you guys were due to leave?”

  “He was happy.”

  “Did he give you the impression he was…seeing someone else?”

  He shakes his head.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  “He said he felt like he was being followed.” He swallows. “He’d been feeling that way for weeks. Then one night, two guys tried to force him into a car on our way back to his place. I screamed, and since there were people around, the two guys drove off.”

  “You remember what they look like?”

  “No, it was dark out.”

  “Did you report the incident?”

  “Yes, but they didn’t come up with anything.”

  Faint alarm bells ring in my head, and I can’t blame the hangover. I told Oscar everything would work out because I was sure his brother had up and left to live his life the way he wanted—somewhere free of the assholes who circled like vultures. But if his boyfriend was left waiting at the airport, representing Thibaut’s biggest chance at escape, and he didn’t show up for it…that put a different spin on things.

  “Is that everything?”

  He looks at me, wide-eyed. “Isn’t that enough?”

  I try not to be brusque with him. “I don’t work for the cops. Just his brother, who paid me to try and find him. I can’t go any further.”

  “You got your money, so you don’t give a shit, is that it?”

  “Listen up, you little fuck. If I didn’t give a shit I wouldn’t be here watching you snivel and listening to your sob story. Got it?”

  He looks down, intimidated. “His brother’s a bastard. He hated Thibaut. He always kept him at a distance, afraid he’d hurt the family’s reputation. The thought that he could benefit even a little from the empire their father left behind drove him crazy. He would’ve killed him to keep him from getting any of it.”

  I think back to the press clippings that showed them joined at the hip. And Thibaut’s voice on the tapes. I begin to think I’ve messed up big time, that I’ve been wrong about everything from the start.

  I go home. Try to reach Nat. Leave her a message saying I had a great time last night and I hope I’ll see her again tonight. After which I lie down on the couch for a break. I make like nothing’s wrong, but I know I’m trying to fend off guilt. Guilt over botching a case and getting paid off. Guilt over thinking about Nat while a little voice inside me whispers: You’re just a shit. You’re sleeping with a married woman—a woman married to your friend. But she’ll never be your wife. And— The voice stops. I’d completely forgotten about the GPS I abandoned on a corner of my dresser—the one I found in the bedroom at the Louasse brothers’ house. I unwind the power cord and examine the device. It’s in bad shape. There’s a hairline crack all the way down the right side of the screen. I lie back down on the couch and press the little button on the side to turn it on. The screen blinks; not much battery left. Mechanically, I press on the icon for recent destinations. They’re all in Seine-Saint-Denis, zip code prefix 93, or in Paris. From the list of a dozen or so, only two stick out. One in Boulogne-Billancourt, to the southwest, and the other far out in Seine-et-Marne. I press on the screen again, like I’m actually trying to go to these places. A female voice rings out in the apartment and announces that I am approximately forty-five minutes from my destination. Suddenly, a brief beep and the screen goes dark. No more battery. I could let it go. I figure I’d had enough alcohol yesterday to merit a little siesta right about now. But I pick up my phone again, this time to call Cherif.

  “Yeah?”

  “I need you, Cherif.”

  “I’m fucking sleeping!”

  “Cherif, I really need you.”

  “What for?”

  “I have to go somewhere. Out in 77, Seine-et-Marne.”

  He lets out a laugh. “Are you crazy? Come by and grab my car, if you have to, but—”

  “You know I don’t have a license.”

  “Then take the bus!”

  He hangs up. Can’t argue with that.

  I lie down on the couch again and tell myself maybe it’s better this way. But my phone rings.

  “Fuck me, you are such an asshole! I’m awake now. Riquet in half an hour.”

  Cherif’s face is puffy from drinking, lack of sleep, and a bad mood. He hasn’t bothered changing out of his tracksuit and a thick cotton sweatshirt before coming out.

  “Why’d you bring a GPS?” he asks once I’m in the car. “I have one.”

  “It’s the GPS I found in Bagnolet. There’s an address in it I want to visit.”

  “What do you want to go there for?”

  “I’ll explain on the way.”

  “Well, start explaining.”

  The GPS lets out a long, shrill beep.

  “I think the batteries are dead.”

  “Oh, give it to me!” He grabs the device from my hands and plugs the cord into his lighter. He checks the trip time on the screen and groans at the distance.

  “Oh, quit moaning. Don’t you want to spend the afternoon with me?”

  “I wanted to spend it at home, sleeping.”

  We exit Paris and head east on the highway. When the GPS tells us to exit, we find ourselves in the middle of the countryside. Soon the pavement runs out and we’re heading down a bumpy road. A quick curve to the left and the car finds itself nosed up against a gate.

  “End of the road,” says Cherif.

  “We’re not there yet.”

  “There’s nothing fucking here! You see a house or anything? No, just fields. We’re going back to Paris.”

  “Just a sec.” I open the door.

  “Idir!”

  I walk up to the gate, check there’s no one around, and step over it.

  I pass through a curtain of trees, sink into leaves the rain has reduced to a shapeless mush. The first few drops of sweat start prickling my forehead. After a bender, you tend to sweat more easily. I sponge off my face and keep walking straight ahead. Two minutes later, I see a stone cottage emerge from the trees about fifty yards away. I stop and crouch down, back against a trunk. My legs start trembling and my stomach contracts.

  “Where are you?”

  I hear Cherif’s voice. He’s just passed through the curtain of trees. I hiss at him and hold a finger up to my lips. He comes over silently. I whisper, “There’s a cottage over there.”

  “Where?”

  I point left. He looks.

  No sign of life around. The only window we can see on th
is side is tiny and too filthy to afford a glimpse through.

  “I want to find out what’s inside.”

  He reaches behind him and pulls a gun from his waistband.

  “I didn’t like feeling naked in front of that ski-masked asshole with a gun last time. Go ahead, I’ll cover you.”

  Bent over, I run to the cottage and flatten myself against the wall right by the door.

  I wave Cherif over. He takes up a position on the other side of the door. I signal one, two, three. He kicks the door right by the knob and it gives way.

  It’s empty. And dirty. One room with a mattress on the dirt floor, a Thermos, empty Coke bottles, a plastic baggie full of weed, and beer bottles turned into ashtrays, the necks whitened by cinder.

  “Smells like your mom,” Cherif mutters.

  I grimace. The shut-in smell, on top of stale tobacco and damp rot, is harder to take than Cherif’s joke.

  “See? Nothing here. Can we go now?”

  We go.

  “Wait.” I decide to walk around the cottage. Nothing except for a shovel against one wall.

  “See? Not a damn thing.”

  Absently, I grab the shovel. Think, think. There are too many threads all tangled up in my mind. I’m not smart enough to pick them all apart. It annoys me. I swing the shovel against the wall. Again and again, harder each time, until my arm muscles start burning. Like the klong the metal makes on stone might clear my head. The soil on the shovel comes off and splatters on the limewash wall, a leech the color of clay, and—blood. I scratch at the muddy leavings. The dirt is red in places. I start running around the cottage, looking everywhere.

  “Idir, you wanna tell me what’s going on?”

  “The shovel!”

  “The shovel what?”

  “I—I think there’s blood on it.”

  “You sure?”

  “I think.”

  “It could be anything, you know.”

  But I’m already far afield. I’m walking without really knowing where I’m going, trudging in circles. Until, about thirty yards from the house, I find a pile of fresh earth.

  “Cherif, bring the shovel.”

  He hands it over. “What do you think is under there?”

  I don’t say anything, just start digging. They didn’t do a very good job. The hole isn’t very deep. A few shovelfuls later, I hit something. A man’s hand comes out of the ground.

  “Oh, fuck!”

  I jump back. Cherif too.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  I keep digging. The smell becomes hard to take. A bloated belly shows next, crisscrossed with swollen veins, gleaming purplish streaks about to break through the translucent skin. Then a face. Hard to believe it was once alive, that it was once a man’s. It looks like a mask, something out of a movie. Except I know this face. I’ve seen it before, in photos. Smiling.

  “It’s Thibaut,” I say.

  “Who?”

  “The kid I was looking for.”

  “The fuck’s he doing here?”

  I take out my phone.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calling the cops. You can go home, Cherif.”

  Cherif puts a hand on my arm. “What are you, stupid? What are you going to tell them?”

  “That I found this body by accident.”

  “The fuck is a guy like you doing way the fuck out here? You’re from the city. You’ve got no business out here in a field. Your prints are on the shovel and all over the place.

  “What the fuck do you want me to do?”

  He hands me the car keys. “Go to the car. Call your client and tell him the news. I’ll clean up here and then we go home. As for the cops, we wait. It won’t change anything. This guy is dead; he’s not going anywhere. We’ll see what happens after.”

  I do as he says and walk back to the car in a daze. I stumble and fall, pick myself back up. I can’t manage to throw up, though I want to. I stick two fingers down my throat to get the retching started. But all my empty belly turns up is some acid bile, which I swallow back down painfully.

  I shut myself in the car, happy for a refuge far from the kid. I dial the number right away, so I don’t have time to think twice. He picks up quick.

  “Idir?”

  “I have some news about your brother—”

  He doesn’t let me finish. His voice is full of hope. “You found him?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know how to say this, so I’ll just say it straight up: he’s dead.”

  I hear a swallowing sound, then silence.

  “You still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s meet. I don’t like phone calls.” I hang up. Cherif comes back a few minutes later. He starts the car.

  “What do you think?” he asks.

  “I have no idea, Cherif. No idea.” I start hitting the dashboard again and again. “I don’t fucking understand any of this bullshit!”

  “Those two brothers must’ve done it. They’re dead; justice is served. Doesn’t happen often, so don’t beat yourself up over it.”

  “Why’d they kidnap him?”

  “It’s what they do.”

  “Yeah, but why him?”

  “His family’s loaded. That not enough reason for you?”

  “Cherif, you don’t get it. I was asked to find the kid. I couldn’t do it. Then some other guy asks me to find his car. And the guys who stole the car are also mixed up with the kid. One client’s problem is bleeding into another client’s bigger problem. Coincidence?” I shake my head. “No way. It just doesn’t add up.”

  “Those guys were degenerates. They’re not out there planning for retirement. They kidnap people, OK? But then they saw the car, so they took it. Because they felt like it, the way you feel like you need to take a leak all of a sudden. They saw a shitload of money rolling by, and so fuck the consequences.”

  “So why kill the kid, then? How’d they know his family was rich? It doesn’t hold up.”

  “Look, he’s dead. It’s sad, but that’s how it is. Now they’re dead, and they deserved what they got. For fuck’s sake, let it go. Forget it!”

  “What would they get out of killing him? Tell me that.”

  “Maybe he just mouthed off to them, Idir, or they woke up one morning wondering what would happen if they killed him. There’s no fucking telling.”

  I know something’s wrong here, and I doubt I can figure it out. “Cherif, coincidence is for normal law-abiding citizens. You believe in coincidence in your line of work?”

  “What now?”

  “If some guy makes you steal a car and the next morning the cops kick in your door, you’d figure he’d turned you in, right?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “So you don’t believe in coincidence.”

  “No.”

  “So we agree. It’s all connected.”

  I don’t know why I insisted on seeing Oscar in person. As if it were going to change anything. But I need to know more because suddenly these families are connected.

  Oscar greets me very solemnly, as if he has to keep his sadness from me. It hasn’t hit him yet; he still hopes I’m wrong. Or at least that’s what it seems like. “Are you sure it was him?”

  “I think it’s him.”

  “You could’ve made a mistake?” he asks in a voice full of hope. I can’t bring myself to contradict him.

  “Yes. Anyone can make a mistake.”

  “Where’d you find him?”

  “Far from here. Out in the country.”

  “Can you take me there? I’d know if it was him.”

  “We’re talking about a body, you know. I’d rather notify the police first. That’d be the straight thing to do. They can notify you after.”

  “If that really is my brother out there, you’d be a key witness in the trial.”

  “Look, you paid me for my work, I did it. If you mention my name so much as once in the police investigation, I
’ll deny everything.”

  He pauses only for a moment, like my reply doesn’t really matter. “So it’s him, huh?”

  I swallow. “It’s the same face as in the photo.”

  He stifles a sob and lets out a little keening sound. “Sorry, sorry, I’m just a bit…shaken. You did good work though.”

  “I’ll call the police from a pay phone. Just an anonymous tip. The rest is out of my hands.”

  “Thanks for everything.”

  I give him a wave and head for the door. I can already see myself outside, taking in a big breath of fresh air. But his voice rings out behind me. “I know who the real culprit is, even if he’ll never be caught.”

  I turn around. He comes up to me and says, “And so do you. Eric Vernay.”

  His voice has changed. I don’t like it. I’m starting to feel like a mute extra in some scene of Oscar’s devising. “I’m not covering for anyone. Not him, not you. Your affairs don’t concern me.”

  “Listen—I got my hands on lots of compromising documents related to his company. Enough to cause a scandal. A big one. I was counting on revealing the information. All of a sudden my brother disappears, and one day, I get a phone call. It was him. He was sobbing. I could hear voices behind him. He begged me to come get him, said he didn’t want to die. And then—click.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He gives me a disillusioned smile, the better to hide the tears welling up in his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know—I didn’t know if you were still close to Vernay. I—I don’t know.”

  I begrudge him for not playing it straight with me, for not putting me in the know right from the start. I might’ve been able to save the kid.

  “Why didn’t you alert the police?”

  “I was scared—for him.”

  “You think Vernay’s behind all this?”

  “Who else?”

  “You have proof?”

  “Nothing. You have more proof than I do. In truth, you’re the only one with any proof. And if I understood you correctly, you don’t wish to testify.”

  I can’t meet his gaze. “I don’t work for Eric, and I have nothing to do with his schemes.”

  He hesitates, stares intently at me for a minute, scouring the depths of my soul. “I believe you—and I respect your decision.”