Leper Tango (21 page)

“I don't get it.”

“Look, Franck, you're free with me. If you don't like it with me,
prends la caisse, et tu te tires.
I'm not stopping you. I have the feeling you haven't made up your mind about something. You're free to go. I never said I had any hold on you. But, I have to know.”

She was wearing a fur coat, and a miniskirt. Beneath the skirt, that cunt, percolating, effervescent. I could always leave her. She wouldn't stop me. She wouldn't have to. If I left, I could go to Beijing or the Galápagos or Baffin Island, and that cunt would draw me right back to its owner, and I'd be back to square one. So, what was the point? There would be consequences, but what was the point?

“There's only one problem with that. I'm in love with you.”

“
Putain
, I never thought I'd hear those words from you.”

“Why else would I stay with you?”

“It's all a film, Franck. The whole world has been in a film for so long that we can't escape. We are holding up a mirror to ourselves, and we cannot bear the image, so we are killing each other and ourselves, just to purge the world of the ugliness of our image.” She smiled. The smile reminded me of Père Lachaise cemetery.
I hope it's not all talk, Franck.
We returned to the car.

“There's something I want to tell you. The day after my mother died, I went to a porn shop on
rue Saint-Denis
. I purchased twelve porn films. Not erotica. Everything
hard
. I spent the whole day watching these films, studying them. Then the day after that. And over and over again, for a week. Finally, I stopped. I had succeeded in burning the bizarre and the source of men's desire right into my subconscious. I had discovered my calling.”

We drove for a time without saying anything. She was staring straight ahead when she spoke again.

“My first client was Malagasy. They are experts in death. I told him what I had done. He explained everything to me. He said, for the dead person to meet with the ancestors, they must disappear from the memory of those who are still alive. Can you imagine, Franck? I can't remember what she looks like, Franck. I can't remember what my own mother looks like. When I try to picture her, sometimes she is four years old, and I am her mother, sometimes she is a hundred years old, like a tree suffering from Dutch elms disease, rotting into mulch. Does this mean she is with the ancestors?”

“You never told me how she died.”

“Franck, there are others, like the baron. Once I have finished with them, all this will stop, and we can be tranquillos
. I prefer you know right from the outset. If
you don't like it,
mais tu prends ta caisse, et tu te barres. Oh
merde, j'ai envie
. Pull over the car. Pull over, Franck. Stop
the car.
Putain
,
Franck, j 'ai envie
.
Faut que je baise
.
Tout
de suite
.”

We moved into another apartment, just outside of town at beachside. The flat was on the second floor, just above the
Vendée Globe
café, overlooking the ocean. It had been built as part of a development which included a Monte Carlo Casino next door. We were awoken in the mornings by the sound of the Atlantic waves crashing onto the shore and sand spraying onto our front balcony, where it accumulated, etching and grinding marks into the sliding glass doors.

The steamrollers and back hoes criss-crossed the beach through thick gusts of Rochelais wind, blowing sand across the levelled beach. A huddle of windsurfers in wetsuits, drinking coffee under the awning of the
Vendée Globe
beneath our apartment.
Ile de Ré
and Fort Bayard, an island prison, visible in the distance of the half-moon bay. The industrial machinery retreated, as the waves gained in vehemence, and the high tide brought the sea closer to our apartment.

She entered the room, carrying a flat tray. Coffee and
tartine
. She placed the tray on a coffee table, rejoined me in bed, propping herself onto the pillow, her legs crossed in a loose, lotus position. She wore a multi-coloured African scarf, wrapped around her head like a turban. She reached for a cigarette and curled up beside me.

“Tell me about Spike, Franck.” “Disgruntled client.”

“But you told me you never lost a case, Franck.”

“I didn't. Never took anything to court I couldn't win hands down. I won this one, two million dollars on the nose. Spike, unfortunately, wants all of the two million.

And, it doesn't work that way.”

“How does it work, then? I mean, if Spike only gets, say some of it, who gets the rest?”

“There's a lot of mouths to feed in the court system.”

“And you're one of them, aren't you, Franck?”

“Sure, I'm one of them. You should consider practicing law, Sheba. Personal injury.” “No, Franck, I think you should consider returning to the practice.”

“Out of the question. It's a full time job.”

“But Franck, as a team, there are a lot of things we could do.”

“Actually, Sheba, money is not really a problem for me these days.”

“But Spike is.”

“Forget Spike, he's not an issue,” I said, holding out a
brioche
. She pushed it away, reached for another cigarette.

The wind blowing ripples of sand insistently across the water outside the flat. Three young boys in wetsuits shrieking as they windsurfed up to the shore. She walked the one step separating us, pointing her finger at my heart, pulled her imaginar y trigger and blew on her fingertip as if it were the smoking barrel of a Glock 17.

You've read the story of Jesse James

Of how he lived and died

If you're still in the need of something to read

Here's the story of Bonnie and Clyde.

She laughed, innocent as a pristine virgin.

“I don't need to kill people, Franck. Not any more.

Do you love me, Franck? Would you do anything for me?
Aller jusqu'au bout
? Are you starting to see what I am about? I hope so, because you are an accessory after the fact.”

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing.”

“Franck, it's just too easy for you. You have never even asked why I do anything, or why I became what I am. It's all so easy for you, Franck. You see a seductive woman, she is there to solve all your temporary problems, and you won't do anything to show that you're willing to take a real risk for her. That's why you're always stuck in your little world, Franck.
Ton petit jardin, quoi.
”

“Give me an example.”

“You're in trouble, aren't you, Franck? I mean, that's why you're doing what you do. It's why you're with me.”

“You have to handle that if you're a lawyer. Usually the storm passes.”

“Unless someone is deliberately trying to get to you.”

“True enough.”

“And you've got a number of people after you. Your ex-wife, this Spike person. Among others.”

“Not to worry. People have to go through the motions sometimes.”

“No, there's more to this. This is about revenge, Franck. They think you've taken part of their lives from them.”

“Well, I don't know where these types find the time to blame all their problems on me. If anything, I improved their lives.”

“Something in you offends them, Franck.”

“I mean, I have a specific pattern figured out, a sort of modus operandi, and no matter where I find myself, I can figure things out. If that offends people, fuck ‘em.

End of story.”

“A stable full of horses, right Franck?”

“Yea, a stable of horses. I've said that before?”

“Doesn't matter which one comes in.”

“That's right. I'm more of a quinella bettor than an exactor man. If you know what I mean.”

“This is different, Franck. Only one horse wins the race we're talking about. You better make the right pick.”

She smiled. Cross-examination adjourned.

“Does the rest matter, as long as we're together, Franck?” “For now, it doesn't matter, Sheba.” She turned away.

“The dream returned last night.” “Refresh my memory.”

“I am organic,
végétal
, a plant. I am trying to push through the surface soil and attract the sun's rays. But, one of those steamrollers comes by and ... it crushes me.
Ca m' écrase
.”

She fell silent. The early morning sky darkened, blurring her features. She turned and faced me. The iris of her left eye had retreated into full eclipse, dilating, enveloping her pupil. The uttering of her dream seemed to have pulled her back to a place she visited in spite of herself. As if she were out on a day pass from the prison of her own mind. She tore her gaze away from me once more.

“It is as if there are threads and tendrils pulling on my brain, Franck. First, there is a clarity, almost approaching ecstacy, of such an exquisite purity. Then, a rough diabolic voice, taunting me with unspeakable fantasies, taking possession, repeating over and over: ‘You're mine now, come back to me.' It is so horrible, yet pleasurable. Like being raped.”

She briefly consulted her fingernails, as if they contained the oracle of Delphi.

“How does it feel when you fuck me, Franck?”

“Like a hole being bored through my brain. Like I'm nuking a third world village, or piloting a 737 into a skyscraper.”

If you really think about it, sex is a strange concept.

For starters, no one thinks about sex per se while they are having sex. It's all a projection of where the mind happens to be at that particular point in time. And the way my mind works is that, whatever those things happen to be, they should be brought to their logical conclusion. Since the
concept
of sex was strange
in the extreme
, yet didn't offend any of my
core beliefs
, it was logical that its essence could be best discovered by trying it out with someone who was a graduate of the school of the bizarre.

She was now undoing my pants, removing my belt, rebuckling it and placing it around her throat. She retreated several steps to a door, wrapped the loop around the doorknob, then hung herself, and began rubbing her clitoris beneath the V of her mauve merrywidow.

“You see, Franck, what I bring people is not satisfaction, but more desire. What eventually kills them comes from inside, not from me. I only awaken it. Do you know, Franck, there is a certain class of men and women whose deepest dream is to be extinguished? Do you want to be extinguished, Franck? Is that what you're looking for?”

V

Our morning walk took us along a path through a gently intoxicating blend of lavender, eucalyptus, palm trees that removed you from the usual time cycles and left you with only one desire — that nothing should change. We were engaged in a half-serious discussion on the art of the deal, and how it varied on each side of the Atlantic.

“Whether you want to make cash in a domestic or foreign jurisdiction, basically the same rules apply. The keys are cash up front, measure the risks, bring in a fall guy, adopt a brand name for mystique, hire a prick, whatever.”

“You have genius, Franck. But you have squandered your talents.”

“The world is filled with geniuses, Sheba. The unemployed, the corner drunk, the ad weasels. All neglected geniuses. All squandered talents.”

I recalled the last time I had lapsed into philosophy. It was a thousand dollar pool game in Macau, and a Chinese hustler was softening me up with compliments. “Nothing original about it, Sheba. I borrowed the idea from the ad world. They borrowed it from somebody else. Nothing's new anyways. The trick is not inventing ideas, it's reducing them to their essence. Run it through the meat grinder. Turn out packageable spam for the masses.”

“Even if the idea is already good?”

“Especially if it's good. The first aim of the marketers is to kill ideas. It's kind of like making dog food. It's not what's in it, it's what you add that counts. That's why they call it the
add
industry. It's not the contents. It's the repackaging.”

“So, you can repackage anything.”

“Oh yeah. Not nearly as hard as it sounds.”

“Tell me, Franck, tell me how it works.”

“Simple. Once everything is product, you're three quarters of the way there. Once it's product, it has to be sold, and for product to sell, everything has to work in triangles. Whether it's three punks playing in a garage band or thirty thousand yes men slaving for a multinational, or three hundred members of an extreme left ecology party, it all breaks down into threes. Who's got the idea, who can put a face on it, and who's the prick who handles money matters.”

“We can do something with this, Franck. You told me you sold citizenships before. In Hong Kong.”

“Over. Part of China now.”

“No, but we just repackage it, Franck.”

Her eyes were glistening. Nothing made her happier than the prospect of future victims.

“Franck, I have the target group. Arabs. Terrorist groups, Franck. They'll pay all kinds of money. Dmitri told me the Canadian passport is the best in the world.

Even the Mossad uses them.” “Who's Dmitri?”

“He works with the Kosovans and Macedonians.

Moving people across borders.”

“Non-starter. It's an endgame.”

She frowned, fell silent. Our walk took us along the ramparts, past the Chateau Grimaldi, then through Juan les Pins. There's something about the Mediterranean that seems to make you disregard the risk factor. In retrospect, the only explanation was cunt. There was a direct ratio bet ween the enticement factor, and the amount of high-end property you had to be acquiring if you wanted to stay in the game. Or it was the sun, or the way those Mediterranean waves lapped up against the ramparts.

In the old village centre, we stopped at a café, sat down at a table outside just in front of a Morris pillar, advertising local bull fights, boxing matches, a
guignol
Punch and Judy puppet production.