Solea (17 page)

He looked at us in surprise. “I'm rambling, aren't I?”

“No, Félix,” Honorine replied. “You're not rambling. You can tell us your memories a hundred times. They're the most beautiful things in your life. And they're even better when they're shared.”

And they started in on their own memories. The afternoon flew by, helped along by several bottles of white wine from Cassis. Fontcreuse, which I always kept for the good times. Then, inevitably, we'd talked about Manu and Ugo. We'd been going to Félix's restaurant since we were fifteen. Félix and Céleste would feed us on
fegatelli
pizzas, spaghetti
alle vongole
, and lasagne made with goat's cheese. It was there that we'd learned, once and for all, what a real bouillabaisse was like. When it came to bouillabaisse, even Honorine didn't come close to her friend Céleste. And it was as he was coming out of Félix's restaurant that Manu had been shot down, five years ago. But we always stopped our reminiscences before that point. Ugo and Manu were still alive. They just weren't with us, that was all, and we missed them. Like Lole.

Félix had started singing “Maruzzella,” my father's favourite song. We sang the chorus in unison, and we all wept for the people we loved who weren't with us anymore.
Maruzzella, o Maruzzella . . .
 

 

Félix looked at me. In his eyes I could see the same fear Fonfon and Honorine had when they knew I was in deep shit. He was at his window when I arrived, looking out to sea, his collection of
Pieds-Nickelés
comics beside him on the table. That was all he ever read, and he reread them endlessly. And as time passed, he'd grown increasingly to look like one of the characters, Ribouldingue, minus the beard.

We talked about the fire. A fine ash was falling on Vallon-des-Auffes too. And Félix confirmed that the fire had moved toward Allauch. He'd just heard the commander of the regional fire department on the news, saying we were racing headlong into disaster.

He brought out two beers. “Are you in trouble?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Serious trouble.”

And I told him the whole story.

Félix knew something about gangsters, and the Mafia. An uncle of his, on his mother's side, a guy named Charles Sartène, had been a strong-arm man for Mémé Guérini, the undisputed head of the Marseilles underworld after the war. Gradually, I led up to the deaths of Sonia and Mavros. When I said that Fonfon and Honorine were at the top of the list of possible targets, I had the impression that the lines on his face became even more deeply etched.

Then I told him how I got here, the precautions I'd taken to give the killers the slip. He shrugged. His eyes moved away from mine and lingered idly on the little harbor of Vallon-des-Auffes. It was a long way from the hustle and bustle of the world. A haven of peace. Like Les Goudes. One of those places where Marseilles exists in the imagination of those who gaze at her.

I remembered some lines by Louis Brauquier:

 

I am walking toward the people of my silence

Slowly, toward those I can be silent with;

I shall come from afar, enter and then sit down

I am coming to find what I shall need to leave again.

 

Félix turned to look at me again. His eyes were slightly misty, as if he had been crying inside. He made no comment, just asked, “Where do I fit into all this?”

“I got this idea in my head that the safest way to meet Babette is at sea. These guys are outside my front door. If I take the boat out at night, they're not going to follow me. They'll wait for me to come back. That's what happened the other night.”

“Right.”

“I'll tell Babette to come here. You can take her over to Frioul, and I'll meet the two of you there. I'll bring something to eat and drink.”

“Do you think she'll agree?”

“To come?”

“No, to what you're thinking of. Drop the idea of publishing her report . . . All those things that'll implicate people.”

“I don't know.”

“It won't make any difference. They'll kill her anyway. And you too, I suppose. People like that . . .”

Félix had never been able to understand how someone could become a professional killer. He'd often talked to me about his relationship with Charles Sartène. Everyone in the family called him Uncle. A great guy. Kind. Considerate. Félix had wonderful memories of family gatherings, with Uncle at the head of the table. Always very well dressed. The children would come and sit on his lap. One day, a few years before he died, talking to Antoine, one of his nephews, who wanted to become a journalist, Uncle had said, “If only I was younger! I'd go along to the offices of
Le Provençal
, kill one or two of the guys on the top floor for you, and you'd see, boy, they'd hire you straight away.”

Everyone had laughed. Félix, who must have been about nineteen at the time, had never forgotten those words. Or the laughter. He'd refused to go to Uncle's funeral, and had broken with his family for good. He'd never regretted it.

“I know, Félix,” I said. “But I have to take the risk. Once I've talked to Babette, I'll see.” Then, to reassure him, I said, “And I won't be acting alone. There's this cop I've been talking to . . .”

There was fear mixed with anger in his eyes. “You mean you talked to the cops?”

“Not the cops. One cop. A woman. The woman who's investigating the deaths of Sonia and Mavros.”

He shrugged, as he had earlier. A little more wearily, maybe. “If the cops are involved, Fabio, count me out. It complicates everything. And increases the risks. Shit, you know what it's like here . . .”

“Wait, Félix. This is me you're talking to, right? If I do bring in the cops, it won't be till later. After I've seen Babette. After we've decided what to do with the papers. This woman, this police captain, doesn't even know Babette is coming. She's in the same position as the killers. She's waiting. They're all waiting for me to find Babette.”

“O.K.,” he said. He looked out the window again. The flakes of ash were coming down more thickly now. “It hasn't snowed here for years. Instead, we have this. Fucking fire.”

He looked back at me, then down at the copy of
Les Pieds Nickelés
open in front of him. “O.K.,” he repeated. “But this fucking mistral has to stop first, or we won't be able to go out.”

“I know.”

“Couldn't you see her here?”

“No, Félix. That trick I pulled in the Bourse Center was a one-off. I couldn't try anything like that again. They'll be suspicious now. And I don't want that. I need them to trust me.”

“Trust you? Are you serious?”

“O.K., not trust exactly. You know what I mean, Félix. I need them to think I'm playing fair. That I'm just a poor shmuck who doesn't know anything.”

“All right,” he said, thoughtfully. “Tell Babette to come. She can stay here. Until the mistral dies down. As soon as we can put to sea, I'll call Fonfon.”

“You can call me.”

“No, not at your house. I'll call Fonfon. At his bar. O.K., tell Babette I'll be here. She can come whenever she wants.”

I stood up. So did he. I put my arm around his shoulder and hugged him.

“It'll be all right,” he muttered. “We'll sort it out, huh? We've always sorted things out.”

“I know.”

I kept hugging him, and he made no move to free himself. He knew there was something else I still had to ask him. I imagined his stomach tensing at the thought of it. Mine certainly was.

“Félix,” I said. “Do you still have Manu's gun?”

The smell of death filled the room. I understood the exact meaning of the expression “a deathly silence.”

“I need it, Félix.”

T
hey phoned one after the other. First Hélène Pessayre, then the killer. I'd phoned Babette before that. But from Fonfon's. When Félix had said he'd call Fonfon's and not my house, he'd started me thinking. He was right, my phone might be tapped. Hélène Pessayre was perfectly capable of something like that. And if the cops were listening in on my calls, then anything I said might end up in the ears of a mafioso. You just had to pay, as Fargette had done for years. You just had to agree on a price. And for the guys camped outside my door, the price was unlikely to be a problem.

I'd looked out and tried to spot them on the street. The killers, and the cops. But I couldn't see any Fiat Punto or any Renault 21. It didn't matter. They had to be there. Somewhere.

“Can I use your phone?” I'd said to Fonfon as I walked in.

The only thing that mattered right now was to see my plan through. Even though what happened after I found Babette and talked to her was still a complete blank. The imminence of her arrival created a kind of black hole that was sucking me into it.

“There you go,” Fonfon grunted, putting the phone on the bar counter. “It's like the post office here, but the calls are free, and you get a
pastis
thrown in.”

“Hold on, Fonfon!” I cried, dialing Bruno's number in the Cévennes.

“I mean, you come and go like the wind. Faster than the mistral. And when you're here, you don't say anything. You don't explain. The only thing we know is that wherever you go, you leave a trail of corpses behind you. Goddammit, Fabio!”

Slowly, I put down the receiver. Fonfon had poured
pastis
into two small glasses. He placed one of them in front of me, clinked his glass against mine, and drank without waiting for me.

“The less you know—” I began.

He exploded. “No way! Don't give me that bullshit! Not now. That's over! You explain yourself, Fabio! I saw the face of the guy in the Fiat Punto. As close as I'm seeing you now. We passed each other. He was on his way to Michel's to buy cigarettes. He looked at me.”

“A Mafia guy.”

“Sure . . . But I mean, I recognized his face. I'd seen it not long ago.”

“What? Here?”

“No. In the newspaper. His photo was there.”

“In the newspaper?”

“Fabio, when you read the newspaper, don't you ever look at the pictures?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Well, his photo was there. Ricardo Bruscati. Richie, to his friends. They mentioned him when that book about Yann Piat came out.”

“What did they say about him? Do you remember?”

He shrugged. “What do I know? You should ask Babette, she'll know.” He looked me straight in the eyes when he said that.

“What made you mention Babette?”

“Because this whole mess is all down to her, isn't it? Honorine found the note that came with the disks. You left it on the table. So she read it.”

Fonfon's eyes were shining with anger. I'd never seen him like this before. Screaming and cursing, sure. But that anger in his eyes, never.

He leaned toward me. “Fabio,” he said. His voice was a little softer, but firm. “If there was only me . . . I don't give a damn, you know. But there's Honorine. I don't want anything to happen to her. Do you understand?”

I felt a wrench in my stomach. So much love.

All I could find to say was “Give me another drink.”

“I'm not being nasty or anything. What Babette does is her business. And you're big enough to fuck up whichever way you like. I'm not going to dictate to you what you can and can't do. But if those guys touch a hair on Honorine's head . . .”

He didn't finish the sentence. But his eyes told me what he couldn't say in words: that he was holding me responsible for whatever happened to Honorine. Just to her.

“Nothing will happen to her. I swear. Or to you.”

“Right,” he said, not really convinced.

But we clinked glasses all the same. For real, this time.

“I swear,” I repeated.

“O.K., let's drop it,” he said.

“No, let's not drop it. I'll call Babette, and then I'll tell you what she says.”

Babette agreed. She'd come, and we'd talk. My plan suited her. But, from the tone of her voice, I guessed it wouldn't be a piece of cake, getting her to give up on publishing her report. We didn't pursue that for now. The important thing was to talk about it face to face.

 

“I have some new information,” Hélène Pessayre said.

“So have I,” I replied. “You first.”

“My men have identified one of the guys.”

“So have I. Ricardo Bruscati.”

Silence at the other end.

“Impressed, huh?” I said, amused.

“Quite impressed.”

“I used to be a cop, too.”

I tried to imagine her face at that moment. The look of disappointment on it. I didn't suppose Hélène Pessayre liked anyone beating her to the draw.

“Hélène?”

“Yes, Montale.”

“Don't make that face!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I found out about Ricardo Bruscati by chance. My neighbor, Fonfon, recognized him. He'd seen his photo recently in the newspaper. That's all I know about him. So go on.”

She cleared her throat. She was still a little angry. “It doesn't make our job any easier.”

“What doesn't?”

“The fact that the second man is Bruscati.”

“Why not? Now we know who we're dealing with, don't we?”

“No. Bruscati is from the Var. He's not known for slicing people up with knives. He's a strong-arm man who settles scores. Just that, nothing else.”

My turn to fall silent. I saw what she was getting at. “There's another man. Is that what you're telling me? A real Mafia hitman?”

“Yes.”

“Who's probably having a quiet aperitif on the terrace of the New York as we speak.”