Chourmo (30 page)

Later, they all ended the night in a club. In his arms, she let herself go. She danced. She hadn't danced like that in years. She'd forgotten what it was like. Dancing. Drinking. Having fun. In the crazy way she had fun when she was twenty. She lost her head. Forgot all about Gino, the children, the restaurant.

They were staying in a luxury hotel. The bed was vast. Narni undressed her and made passionate love to her. Several times. She rediscovered her youth. She'd forgotten what that was like too. But there was something else she'd forgotten, though she didn't realize it till later. That it was her fertile time of the month. Gélou belonged to a generation that didn't take the pill. And she couldn't stand the coil. Not that there was any risk. It had been a long time since she and Gino had fooled around at night after the restaurant closed.

She'd have remembered that night her whole life anyway. Kept it as a wonderful memory. Her secret. But then she realized a child was on the way. And Gino's joy overwhelmed her. Gradually, the two images of happiness became one in her mind. The images of the two men. She didn't feel any guilt. And when she gave birth, supported as never before by Gino, she presented this man who loved her, the love of her life, with a third boy. Guitou.

She was a mother again. She'd regained her balance. She devoted herself to her children, to Gino. To the restaurant. Narni still came, but he didn't excite her anymore. He belonged to the past. To her youth. Until the tragedy, when Narni reached out a hand to her in her distress and loneliness.

“Why should I have told him?” Gélou said. “Guitou belonged to Gino. To our love.”

I'd taken Gélou's face in my hands. “Gélou . . . ”

I didn't want her to ask the question that was on her lips.

“Do you think it would have changed everything? If he'd known Guitou was his son?”

The monk was standing there. I'd signaled to him. He'd put his arm around Gélou's shoulders and I'd left, without looking back. Like Mourad. Like Cûc. And without answering her question.

Because there was no answer.

I was spitting into the void. Where Narni and Balducci had plunged. Forever. I spat out all my disgust. All my weariness.

 

The shaking had almost stopped. All I wanted was a big glass of whisky. My Lagavulin. Or even a bottle. Yes, that would have gone down well.

“Do you have anything to drink?”

“Not even a beer, old buddy. But we can go grab one, if you like. As soon as we get back down to earth,” he joked.

The two of them were starting to bug me.

I lit another cigarette from the butt of the previous one, without their help this time. I took a long drag and looked up at them.

“Why didn't you intervene before?”

“It was your business, Loubet said. A family affair. If you wanted to play it that way, it was fine with us. Why not? We're not going to weep over those two scumbags. So . . . ”

“And . . . and what if I'd taken the plunge instead of them?”

“We'd have gotten them. The gendarmes were waiting at the other end. They wouldn't have gotten through. Unless they'd gone on foot, through the mountains. But I don't suppose mountain hiking was their favorite sport . . . We'd have collared them anyway.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don't mention it. As soon as we realized you were taking the Ginette pass, we figured it out. Maybe you didn't notice, but we kept the road clear, didn't we?”

“That too!”

“There was just that one car that slipped through the net. No idea where it came from. Maybe it was a couple of lovers who'd been fucking in the scrub. I guess they cooled down pretty quickly!”

“And where's Loubet?”

“Interrogating two kids,” Ribero said. “I think you know them. Nacer and Redouane. They were picked up this afternoon. The idiots were still riding around in the BMW. They drove to La Paternelle for a meet with Boudjema Rassef. We had guys staking out his place. As soon as he met up with them, we pounced. It was quite a haul. The prayer hall was a real arsenal. They were getting ready to move the stuff. We think Ressaf was in charge of that. Shipping the arms to Algeria.”

“Tomorrow,” Vernet said, “there's going to be a massive raid. At dawn, obviously. It'll sweep them all up. Your little notebook was great, Loubet said.”

Everything was coming to a conclusion. As it always did. With its share of losers. And the others, all the others, the lucky ones, were asleep in their beds. Whatever happened. Here, or anywhere on earth.

I stood up.

It wasn't easy. I felt really drained. They caught me just as I fainted.

W
e had our drink, Ribero, Vernet and I. Ribero had driven the Saab as far as the David statue at Rond-Point de la Plage. Now, with a whisky warming my stomach, I was feeling a whole lot better. It was only a Glenmorangie, but it fitted the bill nicely. They were more the peppermint cordial types.

Vernet finished his drink, stood up and pointed to his left. “Your place is that way. You going to be all right, or do you still need us to be your guardian angels?”

“I'll be all right,” I said.

“Because it's not over yet. We still have a lot to do.”

I shook hands with them.

“Oh, by the way, Loubet strongly recommends fishing. He says it's the best cure for what you have.”

And they laughed again.

 

I'd just parked outside my door when I saw Honorine come out of her house. In a dressing gown. I'd never seen her in a dressing gown. At least, not since I was a kid.

“Come, come,” she said in a low voice.

I followed her inside.

Fonfon was there. With his elbows on the kitchen table. Cards spread out in front of him. They were playing rummy. At two in the morning. They'd been living it up while my back was turned.

“Are you OK?” Fonfon said, giving me a hug.

“Have you eaten?” Honorine asked.

“I wouldn't say no to some stew.”

“What do you mean, stew?” Fonfon cried. “Stew! As if we had nothing better to think about.”

They were the way I liked them.

“I'll make you a little
bruschetta
, if you like. It won't take long.”

“Don't worry, Honorine. What I need more than anything is a drink. I'll go fetch my bottle.”

“No, no,” she said. “You're going to wake them all up. That's why Fonfon and I have been waiting for you.”

“What do you mean? Wake who up?”

“Well, in your bed, there's Gélou, Naïma and . . . oh, I can't remember her name. The Vietnamese lady.”

“Cûc.”

“That's it. On the couch, there's Mathias. And in a corner, on a little mattress I had, there's Naïma's brother. Mourad, is that his name?”

“That's right. And what are they doing there?”

“I don't know. They must have thought they'd be better here than someplace else, I suppose. What do you think, Fonfon?”

“Well, I think they did the right thing. You want to sleep over at my place?”

“Thanks. That's kind of you. But I don't think I'm sleepy anymore. I'm going out to sea for a while. It looks like a good night.”

I kissed them both.

I crept into my house like a thief. I took a new bottle of Lagavulin and a jacket from the kitchen, and a warm blanket from the closet. I put on my old fisherman's cap and went down to my boat.

My faithful friend.

I saw my shadow in the water. The shadow of a burned out man.

I rowed out, in order not to make any noise.

I thought I could see Honorine and Fonfon embracing on the terrace.

That's when I started to cry.

God, it felt good.

Jean-Claude Izzo was born in Marseilles in 1945. Best known for the Marseilles trilogy (
Total Chaos
,
Chourmo
,
Solea
), Izzo is also the author of
The Lost Sailors
, and
A Sun for the Dying
. Izzo is widely credited with being the founder of the modern Mediterranean noir movement. He died in 2000 at the age of fifty-five.