Paris Noir: Capital Crime Fiction (4 page)

For the rest of the day, Omar couldn’t stop thinking about Rania. He had to convince her to take him back somehow.

At five o’clock, he left the office. As he headed towards the Métro, someone grabbed him from behind, forced him against the side of the building, and cuffed him.

‘Hey, what’s going-’

‘Shut up,’ a voice said.

Officer Michel Perreaux turned Omar around to face him. Perreaux was wearing dark sunglasses, but Omar could see the cuts and purple bruises all over his face. Another cop was next to him – probably his partner.

Omar was thrilled that Perreaux was alive. At least it meant that he wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life in jail.

‘Look, I’m sorry about last night,’ Omar said. ‘It was a very big misunderstanding. I was drinking too much, way too much and-’

’Get in the car.’

Omar didn’t move so Perreaux pushed him ahead towards the squad car. The cops stuffed Omar into the back, then they got into the front.

’I didn’t do anything,’ Omar said. ‘This is bullshit. What did I do?’

’You assaulted a police officer,’ Perreaux said.

’You started it, not me. You spilled your drink on my head. It was your idea to go outside and fight, not mine.’

‘Was it my idea for you to steal my money?’

’I didn’t steal from you. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Then what happened to my money? Did it just d vanish?’

’Somebody else must’ve robbed you while you were passed out.’

‘And then he resisted arrest,’ Perreaux said to his partner. ‘Didn’t he, Georges?’

‘He shouldn’t’ve tried to take your gun away from you like that,’ Georges said. ‘He’s lucky he didn’t kill somebody.’

As the car headed down Batiste, Omar realised that the cops must’ve found out where he worked from Frederic the bartender. Omar remembered having a conversation with Frederic about his job a few weeks ago.

They drove somewhere to the outskirts of the city. It definitely didn’t seem like they were heading to a police station.

Finally, in an industrial area that Omar didn’t recognise, the car pulled up by an abandoned building. For the first time in years, Omar prayed to Allah. If Allah got him out of this Omar would go to the local mosque every Friday, read the Koran regularly, and he’d stop drinking so much. He’d become the type of man Rania wanted him to be.

Perreaux came around and opened the back door and said, ‘Get the hell out.’

‘Where are you taking me?’ Omar asked, terrified.

‘I said get the hell out of the car or I’ll shoot you with the handcuffs on.’

Omar got out of the car slowly and then the two cops pushed him along towards an alley.

Perreaux said, ‘Come on, walk, you goddamn mujahadeen bastard – pick up those lazy feet and walk.’

Omar tried to kick Perreaux, but he couldn’t get any strength into it. The other cop grabbed his arms and then Perreaux started punching him. It felt like he was using brass knuckles and the pain in his jaw was like nothing he’d ever experienced. Omar knew his nose was broken too, and probably a few other bones in his face. Everything was a daze and Omar hoped he’d just pass out and wake up in a hospital bed somewhere. Well, the first part of his wish came true, but when he opened his eyes both cops were still beating him mercilessly. He was propped against a wall and he felt sharp pains in his stomach and face. He tasted warm salty blood.

‘Muslim bastard. Maybe this’ll teach you not to steal. You’re supposed to be religious people, meanwhile you’re all fucking thieves.’

‘Hey, Michel, I think I broke one of his teeth.’

‘The dirty mujahadeen won’t be eating for a while, huh?’

Omar heard more cursing and laughing, then he blacked out again. When he woke up, he was lying on the ground and every part of his body was in pain. It was quiet for a while, then he heard voices.

‘Michel, what’re you doing?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Come on, don’t do that. Let’s just get out of here.’

‘I said shut up.’

‘Come on, Michel. You got even, let’s just-’

‘I said shut up.’

It was quiet again. Omar opened his eyes slightly, but he wished he’d kept them shut. Perreaux pulled his pants down and began peeing on Omar’s face.

When it was over Georges said to Perreaux, ‘Come on, let’s get out of here.’

Laughing, Perreaux said, ‘It’s a good thing I had all that wine during lunch today, huh?’

The cops left, laughing. Omar wiped at his face with his sleeve a couple of times, trying to get the blood and piss off his lips, but then he was too exhausted to move his hand any more and he just lay there.

Then, as his eyes started to close again, he thought he was imagining it. But no, it was definitely there, attached to the side of the building, maybe twenty metres away, pointed in his direction. It was working too, because it was shifting slowly back and forth.

Looking up at the surveillance camera, Omar managed a wide smile.

I pull away from the pavement, dropping two Rastas in front of La Cigale. There’s a Gladiators comeback show on tonight. Then my taxi cruises into Square Anvers, picking up a scared blonde. She says she lives at La Madeleine.

Midnight.

In thirty minutes we’ll be alone among the taxis and motorbikes, speeding down the city’s streets. I take the wide boulevards, avoiding drunken louts staggering onto the tarmac, cans of beer in hand, and sleepy couples, cyclists without lights.

I’ll never forget Paris, all the cities I’ve driven through. Stockholm’s powdery snow. The strangled guitars of Barcelona’s Rambla del Raval. The shouts of restless rockers in Camden. The youngsters streaming with sweat in the port of Naples, about to sail for Ischia. The drizzle darkening Amsterdam’s windows. And I was forgetting Berlin: Berlin, its smell of warm beer in the nightclubs, leather gear and Lobotomie playing punk rock. All slip by under the wheels of my Citröen, between my fingers fiddling with my twenty-third Camel. The girl behind me moans on, talking about health and the environment, but I don’t give a shit. My cab’s my kingdom. I slam the brakes.

‘Get out, bitch.’

She gets out, shouting, while I tune in to Radio Nova: Solomon Burke pounds out ‘Don’t give up on me’. I can see him from here, Stetson glued to his head, in his regal attire, slumped on his king’s throne. I change into second, go back up to Barbes where the lights are smothered by kebab smells.

Glance in the rear-view mirror: a forty-five-year-old woman’s there, bags under her eyes, hair tumbling over her black biker’s jacket. The night is vast, the wind picks up under the elevated section of the Métro. Neon explodes in the dark. I park the Citröen round the corner from Virgin and go into Mekloufi’s bar.

I’ve got Roger in front of me and I already know what he’s going to say. A tirade about how I’ve got him by the balls on my walkie-talkie. Lomshi, next to me, thinks the same thing.

‘Right guys, I’ll give it to you straight: my balls are attached to your walkie-talkies. The deal’s going down in Square Saint-Bernard. Sugar, you’re covering rue Myrha and you, Lomshi, rue Stephenson. Is that clear?’

‘Got you, Roger.’

‘The slightest thing, you call me, that’s it. You’re the only ones on that frequency.’

‘How much are you dropping?’

‘Five hundred grams of coke. OK, get to your positions.’

I scarper to my bit of terrace on the fifth floor, just round the corner from the mosque on rue Myrha. Then my imperial eye sweeps the street. Nobody. So I take out my Colombian, my papers and my matches. And roll myself the spliff of the century. If Marley could see me with my Rasta hat, he’d be proud of me. I light it, inhaling the sweet smell. Vague glance down the street. I zone out, thinking about the cock fight the night before in the Sernam warehouses. I’d bet on a little runt with a gold comb the breeder called Chico. He was fighting a creature that was raised easy in the dust of the cock-fighting pit. After three minutes both of them were pissing blood and my breeder’d lost his beast who deserved a fortnight’s holiday in the country. But he was dead, doped with brandy, his neck broken by a country hick.

I must have dropped off as I found my joint singeing my jeans, which cost me a fortune at Diesel.

Shit, it’s coming back to me, the deal. I risk a glance over the concrete parapet and see five cops, two in plain clothes, who are shoving Roger against a wall and laughing, swinging the coke at arm’s length.

Fuck. The shame of it.

I crawl across the terrace like a road, tumble down the staircase and hurtle down the five flights, sick to the stomach with fear. As I reach the lobby, I see Roger whispering something to Lomshi, who’s just arrived. Lomshi’s my age, fifteen, he’s the lookout for all the Barbès dealers. Then he runs off towards the corner of rue Myrha and rue des Poissonniers. Running to tell all the drug barons hiding out at the Les Bees Salès bar.

The cops cuff Roger and bundle him into a car marked ‘Police’.

The fear of it.

Lookouts aren’t allowed to doze off. The walkie-talkie crackles in my right hand. I stash it in the fuse box in the hallway. Then leg it to the bottom of the street. I run down the street behind Saint-Bernard, think about doing a tour of Barbès, choosing the darkest, seediest streets. It’s not hard.

The cannabis slows me down.

I think of my sister, on the Tarterets estate.

Of my brother, Mamadou, working like a bastard at the post office, feeding the whole family.

I hear a Capelton reggae number, it’s doing my head in.

I think of the pile of money we made from the deal and deposited at the BNP.

And most of all, I clock the two guys running after me. A dark patch and I cut into rue Polonceau and jump over the fence around the square. Ten or so babes surround a rabble of boys playing football and swapping panini in the half-light. I crouch behind a bench and close my eyes. I don’t want to die.

The guy playing guitar at Mekloufi’s is known as Mimine and he knows three songs: ‘Black Eyes’, ‘Minor Swing’ and ‘Clouds’. When he’s finished those three, he turns to his accompanist, another guitarist, and they improvise. I still don’t get why they’ve got gypsies playing a Moroccan bar but who cares: the beer costs two euros, the music isn’t bad if you like Django Reinhardt and the boss cooks couscous for the regulars. Perfect.

The promotional clock tells us it’s 9 p.m. Through the cafèwindows, I check out the immigrants rushing back to their tiny freezing rooms, women in African robes and baggy-jeaned rappers jangling their two-carat bling.

I’m working till midnight tonight because Alex, the second driver, only picks the car up at 6 a.m. tomorrow morning. I throw ten euros on the table and stick my nose outside, just as a fine drizzle begins to fall. A young Senegalese woman decked out like a Christmas tree rushes towards me, waving her tresses.

‘Are you the taxi?’

I nod.

‘I’ll take it. I’m going to rue Polonceau.’

‘You’re kidding. Rue Polonceau’s three hundred metres away on foot, that works out a lot per hundred metres.’

‘I know, but I’m going to a birthday party and I don’t want to get my hair wet. Shall we go.’

I get into the cab, turn on the meter and tune into TSF which is playing ‘Paris Blues’, an old Terry Callier number that brings tears to my eyes. In five twists of the steering wheel I’m back up La Goutte J’Or, turning into rue Polonceau. The girl gets out at number 14. A bit further on, a whole group of mothers and kids leaving the square with old newspapers shielding their heads. I put the meter back to zero when a son of Jah – a teenager – throws himself on to the back seat, bent double.

‘Come on, grandma, get going!’

I half turn round and give him a professional slap. Little shit.

‘Hey, what was that for? Get a move on, I’m in a hurry.’

‘I’m not your servant, kiddo.’

‘OK, OK.’

Then I spot three black guys, dressed hip-hop style, making their way towards us. And swivel to look at the kid, who’s turning green.

Trembling, he holds out a twenty-euro note.

‘Go, lady, please.’

I move into first, but as I pass the black guys, they throw themselves on my bonnet, stopping me. Shit, it’s not the day for it.

I open the glove box and pull out the Beretta, putting on the safety catch. Then, pretty tense, I push the door open, waving my gun.

‘Touch the taxi and you get shot.’

‘Hey grandma, stay cool, we just want to pick up our friend in the back.’

‘He’s not your friend. Get back all three of you.’

I know those guys: three of the Barbès drugs boss’s henchmen. Look like rappers but they’ve got chickpeas for brains. I hear them whining to the taxi woman: they’re scared of her gun. I yank open the door and shout to the old girl:

‘Lady, it’s best to just go.’

She turns towards me and at the same time I get a knife in the shoulder. Shit, it burns. I quickly get back in, shouting, while the taxi woman shoots a few bullets into the air to frighten off the scum.

She gets behind the wheel.

‘It’s bleeding.’

‘Shut it, trouble.’

She throws the taxi into reverse, backs down La Goutte d’Or and we reach boulevard Barbès in the rain. And I think I’m dying.

‘A hospital…’

‘I know. Let me think.’

It’s not my day. My district’s a no-go area and my only chance is to get back to Tarterets to lie low and wait for them to forget me.

She’s turned on the radio and I recognise something by Dr Dre.

I see her eyes in the mirror.

‘Shit, it hurts.’

‘Don’t pull on the blade, it’s stopping the blood flow. I know Hôtel-Dieu well, we’ll go straight there. When we get there, you say nothing about my gun. You got knifed by some crazies in the street and I picked you up afterwards. Understood?’