The Black Tower (5 page)

T
HERE IS NOTHING
so sad, I’ve always thought, as wineshops in the middle of the afternoon. Or the women who run them. I submit to you the Widow Maltaise. A nest of white hair, uncertain in its provenance, woven into a large blue kerchief. A calico dress and a calico
face,
cottony with years. One eye droops low; the other draws itself imperiously high. The voice comes straight up from her feet, like coal from a seam.

“It’s Vidocq again. Death of my trade.”

He wraps his arms round her. “Ooh, I’ll make it worth your while. Don’t think I won’t.”

She fans us in the direction of a table. Minutes later: a carafe of blush, three pewter plates, and the remains of someone’s veal, fringed with tooth marks. And, of course, her disapproval, settling over us in strands.

“Has to come here,” she mutters. “Can’t do his business at Pontmercy’s. Always darkening my door…”

“Well, now, Poulain!” Vidocq cinches his arm round the man’s tiny shoulder-ridges. “It’s been too long, my friend! And how pale you are. Put some
wine
in the system, there’s a good fellow.”

A billiard table sits lost in shadows, one of the cues still cocked against the baize. On the bar there’s a trough of snuff, lacquered over with spit. In the corner a cat, fumed in liver, nibbling on a rat bone.

“Wine’s not bad,” mumbles Vidocq. “Veal’s a bit tough.” From his mouth, he draws out a fragment of bone. “Maltaise must be leaving bits of herself in it. Now then, Poulain, I don’t suppose you’re familiar with a gentleman named Chrétien Leblanc.”

“Should I be?”

“No, it’s just—sorry, got something stuck in my—seems Monsieur Leblanc met a
final
sort of end last Sunday. No, don’t look like that, I’m not saying
you
had anything to do with it. Things
happen
in Paris, I know that. Doctor, you finished with your wine? You’re sure?”

He drinks this one at a more deliberate pace. And with about a third still left, he does something unexpected: lowers the glass beneath the plane of the table and, when he’s sure Poulain isn’t looking, tips the rest of the wine onto the floor.

“Here’s my problem, Poulain. I’ve got this friend—Pomme Rouge, you know him? Over on the Rue de la Juiverie? Well, it seems yesterday morning Pomme Rouge was asked to fence a watch. Oh, I’m sorry,
purchase
. Not a very expensive watch, but then the watch’s owner was not well off. He did have the wherewithal, though, to engrave his monogram on the case.
CXL
. Chrétien Xavier Leblanc.”

Vidocq inclines his head, as though he were still sounding it in his mind’s chamber.

“Well, you can imagine my shock when I hear that this owner of dead men’s watches goes by the name of Poulain, alias Coubert, alias Lamotte. Yes, my friend, all
your
names. Popping up, as they will do. Why, it was enough to make me wonder if you had some—some
accidental
connection to the deeply unfortunate Monsieur Leblanc.

“And wasn’t I relieved to learn you were already spoken for that evening? Oh, yes, I asked around. Two extremely reliable gentlemen placed you at Mère Bariole’s on Sunday evening, from six onward. It
was
Bariole’s, wasn’t it, Poulain?”

The smaller man stretches out his legs, contemplates his feet.

“Well, now,” Vidocq continues, “you can guess what an ass I felt like. Even
thinking
you were—well, I won’t say it. But then my good friend here—oh, I’m sorry, have you met Dr. Carpentier? I know, he looks twelve, but believe me, he’s one of the most feared men in Paris. His testimony
alone
has sent more than a dozen men to the gallows. They call him God’s Third Eye, don’t they, Doctor? No, don’t blush, it’s true. Well, Dr. Carpentier tells me that Monsieur Leblanc, the
ill-starred
Monsieur Leblanc, was likely killed—when was it, Doctor?—oh, that’s right, early Sunday afternoon.”

He pauses, as if the intelligence is still filtering through. Then, speaking in tones of deep abashment:

“And, Christ Almighty, didn’t I feel even sillier! All this time, I was checking your whereabouts for Sunday evening, and it turns out the whole business went down in daylight.” He raps himself on the head. “Knock knock! I say, Vidocq, is anybody home?” Chuckling, he slides his chair closer. “And the worst thing about it, my friend, is now there’s no one to account for you. From, oh, let’s say noon to three-thirty.” He strokes the end of his nose, smiles crookedly. “But maybe you can do that for us.”

I will later learn this from Vidocq: A man either confesses on the spot or after great resistance. There are two paths only, and Poulain takes the second.

“I was with Jeanne-Victoire,” he says.

“Naturally.”

“She’ll back me up.”

“Of course.”

“I was napping, Monsieur. A man like me needs his rest.”

“Working
nights
as you do.” And as if to demonstrate his allegiance, Vidocq lets out a hippopotamus yawn. “Doctor,” he says, rubbing his eyes, “do you still have that bag with you?”

What a surprise to find it coiled round my ankle.

“Just set it on the table, would you?” drawls Vidocq.

He grabs a hunk of snuff from the common fund and takes a stroll across the Widow Maltaise’s creaking floorboards.

“Now it’s an interesting thing,” he says, circling back to us. “On the day in question, there was a fair amount of rain. Which, I don’t need to tell you, leaves a bit of mud, eh?” He stares at Poulain, as if waiting for reassurance. “
Oceans
of mud. Now when I first made the acquaintance of the unfortunate Monsieur Leblanc, I noticed something rather curious. Not three feet from his person. Would you like to know what it was?”

“If you like.”

“A footprint.”

He takes another draw of snuff.

“Well, you know what they say about me, Poulain, I never forget a face. Or a footprint.
Yours
in particular. I checked my little file, just to be sure.
Poulain, Arnaud. Size: bantam. Footprint: also bantam. Right boot bears telltale mark, crescent-shaped, from where hobnails have come out
.”

Poulain folds his arms across his bird chest.

“Boots lose their nails,” he says.

“They do.”

“Footprints get washed away.”

“They
do
. Yes, this one
would
have been washed away if I hadn’t scooped it up. Every last bit of it. Why, a few hours in my office, it was hard as plaster.”

Tickling his arm into the turnip bag, Vidocq draws out a square of black clay, rimmed with straw…stamped with a single boot, like the fossil of an ancient fish.

“Now,” he says, all air and light. “If you’d be so good as to take your boot off.”

In the end, Poulain is like the ruffians at Denoyes’. When commanded, he obeys. He can’t see any other road.

“Ah, you see,” says Vidocq, placing the boot in the clay impress. “Fits like a corset. And look, see there? The crescent—the exact shape. Yes, my friend, I believe we have a match.”

Not a trace of smugness in him, I will give him that. He has the air of a church artisan admiring someone else’s transept.

“The boot never lies, my friend. But then it never needs to. Put it back on, there’s a good fellow. No, wait. Allow me to tie.”

In a single swift motion, he laces Poulain’s boot to the chair leg.

“No offense, my friend. It’s just a little precaution we take. But you’re still looking a bit pale. Hey, Mama Maltaise! Another carafe for my friend here!”

How slowly he pours this time around. As if the wine were the accretion of a single thought.

“Poulain,” he says, pushing the glass gently toward him, “you’re many things—believe me, I know
all
the things you are—but not a killer. Not yet.”

Cupping his hand under Poulain’s chin, he leans into him, eyes blazing.

“Tell us how it went,” he whispers. “And maybe old Vidocq can find something in his bag of mercy, eh?”

From somewhere in the dark recesses, I hear the Widow Maltaise’s cat, luxuriously bathing its paws.

“I was lucky,” says Poulain. “That’s all.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean I just happened to be there. Minding my own business, if you must know. Helping myself to a muffin cart.”

“Your own, of course.”

Poulain’s eyes squeeze even tighter. “I believe it was left behind by someone.”

“Go on.”

“And then I heard some noises, all right? In the alley off Rue des Maçons.”

“What sort of noises?”

“Oh, it was—I don’t know—shit-being-knocked-about noises. I thought I’d have a look, in case there was action.”

“And that’s where you first saw Leblanc.”

After careful consideration, he gives a nod.

“What was he doing?” Vidocq asks.

“Getting his stuffing taken out.”

“He wasn’t yelling? Or calling out? Most men would have, I think.”

“He’d have liked to, I’m sure. They had a gag in his mouth.”

“They,”
Vidocq says. “More than one.”

“Two.”

“Recognize them?”

“I should say not,” says Poulain. “You won’t find me consorting with amateurs.”

“What makes you think they were?”

“Fuck’s sake, they went through his pockets, but they didn’t take any money! Just a blessed envelope. I mean, why cut down the tree if you’re not going to shake the branches?”

“Tell us what happened next.”

I’m not sure I can convey the thing Poulain’s lips do. A twisting, a deformation—we’ll call it a smile.

“I yelled for the police,” he says.

Eyes shining, Vidocq pats the smaller man’s hand.

“Having already made sure there
weren’t
any police.”

“’Course.”

“And it worked? Your little ruse?”

“Bastards tore off like hares. Blood still on their paws. Didn’t even stop to take the man’s shoes. That’s why I say they weren’t professionals.”

Vidocq stares at the cue still lying on the billiard table. “So the two men are gone,” he says. “The coast is clear. Down comes Poulain.”

“I was only going to stay a minute. See what I could find on him.”

“And you took a watch. A wallet, maybe.”

Poulain shrugs.

“His clothes, too?” asks Vidocq.

“Wasn’t time.”

“Ha! Someone horning in, eh?”

“No,” he says. “Nothing like that.”

And for the first time, something seems to trouble the flat canvas of Poulain’s face. With the faintest shudder, he leans toward Vidocq and whispers:

“Bastard went and grabbed me.”

“
Who
grabbed you?”

“Why, the dead one. Who else?”

C
AREFULLY
, V
IDOCQ POURS
himself another glass. And this time—I’m watching—he drinks the whole glass. With a voice as level as an altar, he says:

“To me, that would imply your dead man was not so very dead.”

“A couple yards short,” Poulain allows.

“He grabbed you where? Round the ankle?”

“Both ankles, I think. Wouldn’t have guessed he had the strength in him.”

“Mm.”

“Damned inconveniencing.”

“Yes.”

“And him babbling the whole time.”

Vidocq pours himself another glass. And this one he doesn’t drink. Just sets it on the table.

“Babbling? I thought he was gagged.”

“I took the gag off, didn’t I? See if he had any gold in his mouth.”

“And what exactly was he babbling?”

“Christ, I don’t know. Something about…” Poulain’s eyes spring open. “
He’s here
. He said somebody or other was
here
. Said it over and over, like a fucking parrot.”

The silence, the essential silence of the wineshop pours round us once more. This, I realize, is when you’ve given Vidocq the most. When you shut him up completely.

“He didn’t tell you
who
was here, did he?”

“No. And I wasn’t about to stick around and get a name, thank you very much.”

Vidocq nods. He nods again, at half the speed.

“Very well, Poulain, you have this
body
hanging off you. What next?”

“Well, what else? Pry him loose and take off.”

“Ah.”

“You think I want him getting a read on me? Saint Peter chucks ’em back sometimes, doesn’t he? He turns
this
one back, it’s La Force for me.”

Vidocq looks up at the ceiling, as though any minute a body might come crashing through the timbers.

“The money,” he says. “From the wallet and the watch. What’d you spend it on?”

“Ran through it at Mère Bariole’s. Me and Agnès had ourselves some sport.”

And then an unexpected thought draws his voice into a new, a wondering register: “I should’ve bought me some new boots.”

“Nothing for the baby?” asks Vidocq.

“Why?”

Vidocq opens his mouth to answer, but the Widow Maltaise is glaring down at him now, lambent with rage.

“Finish your business, Vidocq. Or I call the police.”

There it is: the strange mystique that surrounds him. He is considered
apart
from everything—even the Prefecture that nominally employs him. The law is one thing, Vidocq another.

He pats her arm. He clucks in her ear.

“Just a few more minutes, my sweet. Oh, and the veal was an astonishment to the senses, did I mention?”

By now, Poulain has had time to work out a new tone. He’s the beggar at the gates of Saint-Sulpice.

“See here, Monsieur,” he says. “I’ve been straight with you, haven’t I? Answered everything you asked? Seems to me I shouldn’t get any time for this.”

And Vidocq, he is now the designated representative of Saint-Sulpice, sad in his duty.

“Oh, I see your point, Poulain, I do. But there is the little matter of you stealing. From a nearly dead man. And confound it, you’ve had such a busy career, I’m not sure Monsieur Henry can look the other way this time.” He pours the thief one last glass. “I’ll certainly speak to him, if you like. Tell him what a help you were.”

Poulain stares into his glass, unskeining the path of his future. And having followed it as far as he can, he scratches his chin and rubs his scalp and looks up, dark-eyed, hard-mouthed.

“Can I keep my pipe?”

“Of
course,
my friend, of course. And I’ll tell you what, on Sundays, I’ll send over Agnès. Or else Lise.
She’s
good for cheering a fellow up, isn’t she? And you know what else? I’ll look in on Jeanne-Victoire when I can. And the baby.”

“You can have ’em,” growls Poulain. “That slut’s more than a man can bear.”

Something stirs now behind Vidocq’s eyes as he stares the thief down.

“She always spoke highly of you, Arnaud.”

W
HO CAN SAY
why, at this moment, I should feel obliged to speak—for the first time since coming here?

“The baby,” I say. “Tell me the baby’s name.”

Scowling, Poulain spits it out like a seed.

“Arnaudine.”

The sight of our faces carves the scowl deeper.

“It was
her
idea. She couldn’t give me a boy, so she figured ‘Arnaudine’ was next best. She’s soft that way, if you must know. I always say it’ll be the death of her.”

“Very wise,” says Vidocq.

He pushes back his glass and staggers out of his chair—and, before anyone can draw another breath, tips Poulain’s chair over.

The thief, bound at the ankle, meets the floor with every last bone in his body. A stifled cry, a tremor of doubt. Vidocq stands over him, serene.

“Skulls are soft, too, aren’t they, Poulain? You’d be amazed.”

And then, stepping over the thief’s supine figure, he graces me with a smile.

“That’s enough for today, Doctor.”