Total Chaos (12 page)

Mouloud had just lost the second great love of his life. His pride and joy. The one who'd have made all his sacrifices, even the latest ones, worthwhile. The one who'd finally have proved to him that he'd done the right thing in uprooting himself. Algeria wasn't his country anymore. And now France had rejected him once and for all. Now he was nothing but a poor Arab, and no one would care what happened to him.

He'd wait for death, here in this shitty housing project. He'd never go back to Algeria. He'd gone back once, after Fos. With Leila, Driss and Kader. To see how things were ‘down there.' They'd stayed twenty days. He'd soon realized that Algeria wasn't his story anymore. It was a story that didn't interest him. The empty, neglected shops. The land, parceled out to former mujaheddin and left uncultivated. The deserted villages, turned in on their own misery. He couldn't start over again, make his dreams come true, in a place like that. He hadn't rediscovered his youth on the streets of Oran. Everything was on ‘the other side.' And he'd started to miss Marseilles.

The evening they'd moved to this little two-room apartment, Mouloud, instead of offering up a prayer, spoke to his children. “We're going to live here, in this country, France. With the French. It isn't a good thing, but it isn't the worst that could happen. It's fate. We have to adapt, but we mustn't forget who we are.”

I called Kader, in Paris. I told him to come right away, and to plan on spending some time here. Mouloud would need him, and Driss too. Mouloud then said a few words to him in Arabic. Finally, I phoned Mavros at the gym. It was Saturday afternoon, which meant that Driss was there, training. But it was Mavros I wanted. I told him about Leila.

“Give him a fight, Georges. Soon. And make him work. Every evening.”

“Shit, man, if I put the boy in a fight now, or even in two months, he'll be killed. He'll be a good boxer one day, but he isn't ready yet.”

“I'd rather he was killed in the ring than did something stupid. Georges, do this for me. Take care of him. Personally.”

“OK, OK. Shall I pass him to you?”

“No. His father will tell him later. When he gets home.”

Mouloud nodded. He was the father. It was up to him to tell him the news. I hung up.

Mouloud got up from the armchair, moving like an old man. “You should go now, monsieur. I'd like to be alone.”

He was already alone. Alone and lost.

 

The sun had just set, and I was out at sea. I'd been out more than an hour. I'd brought bread, sausage and a few beers with me. But I couldn't fish. To fish, your mind has to be clear. It's like billiards. You look at the ball. You concentrate on it, and the trajectory you want it to move along, then, confidently and decisively, you transmit the required force to the cue. In fishing, you cast the rod, then concentrate on the float. You don't cast the rod just any old how. You can recognize an angler by the way he casts. Casting is part of the art of angling. Once you've attached the bait to the hook, you have to let yourself be imbued by the sea and the play of light on it. It isn't enough to know that the fish is there, under the surface. The hook has to touch the water as lightly as a fly. You have to anticipate the bite, to strike the fish at the very moment it bites.

My casting lacked conviction. I had a lump in the pit of my stomach, and the beer did nothing to dissolve it. A lump of nerves and tears. It would have done me good to cry. But nothing came out. I'd live with that horrible image of Leila, and that pain, as long as those bastards were still at large. I was reassured by the fact that Loubet was on the case. He was really thorough. He wouldn't overlook any clues. If there was one chance in a thousand that he'd track down the bastards, he'd find it. He'd proved himself. As a detective, he was a whole lot better than most, a whole lot better than me.

I felt bad, though, about not leading the investigation. Not because I wanted to make it a personal affair, but because I couldn't bear the thought that these bastards were at large. No, it wasn't really that. I knew what was tormenting me. It was hate. I wanted to kill them.

I wasn't catching anything today. But I couldn't resign myself to long-line fishing. You catch a lot of fish that way. Pandora, sea bream, gurnard, goby. But I don't enjoy it. You attach hooks every six feet along the line, and let it trail on the water. I still had a long line in the boat, just in case. For days when I didn't want to get home empty-handed. But to me, fishing meant a rod and line.

Thinking about Leila had reminded me of Lole, and Lole had brought me back to Ugo and Manu. It all made a hell of a noise in my head. Too many questions, and no answers. But there was one question that stood out, a question I didn't want to answer. What was I going to do? I hadn't done anything when Manu died. Although I hadn't wanted to admit it to myself, I'd been sure Manu would end up like that. Shot down on the street. By a cop, or, more likely, by some small time gangster working for someone else. That was the nature of things on the streets. For Ugo to die in the same way wasn't so predictable. He didn't have that hatred of the world that Manu carried deep inside him, and which had continued growing as the years went by.

I didn't think Ugo had changed that much. I couldn't believe he was capable of taking out a gun and shooting a cop. He knew what life was about. That was why he'd broken with Marseilles, and Manu. And given up Lole. I was sure someone capable of doing that wouldn't have put his life on the line. If he'd been cornered, he'd have let himself be arrested. The joint is just an interlude. You get out eventually. Alive. If there was one thing I had to do for Ugo, it was that: understand what had happened.

I was thinking again about my conversation with Djamel when I felt the bite, and didn't strike quickly enough. I pulled in the line and attached another bait. If I wanted to understand, I had to follow that lead. Had Auch identified Ugo from the testimony of Zucca's bodyguards? Or had he had him tailed as soon as he left Lole's? Had he let Ugo kill Zucca? It was possible, but I couldn't accept it. I didn't like Auch, but I didn't think he was that Machiavellian. I went back to another question: how had Ugo found out about Zucca so quickly? Who'd told him? Another lead to be followed up. I didn't yet know how to go about it, but I had to try. Without getting in Auch's way.

I finished the beers and actually managed to catch a bass. About four and a half pounds. For such a bad day, it was better than nothing. Honorine was waiting for me when I got back. Sitting on her terrace, watching TV through the window.

“Poor man!” she said, when she saw my bass. “You'd never have made your fortune as a fisherman!”

“I never set out to make my fortune.”

“But a bass like that...” She looked at it regretfully. “How are you going to cook it?”

I shrugged.

“It mightn't be too bad with a
Belle Hélène
sauce.”

“I'd need a crab for that, and I don't have one.”

“Oh, no, you've got that look in your eyes. I guess I'd better not do anything to annoy you! Hey, I have some cod tongues. They've been marinating since yesterday. How about I bring them tomorrow?”

“I've never tried them. Where did you get them?”

“A niece of mine brought them from Sète. I haven't eaten them since my poor Toinou passed on. Anyhow, I've left you some vegetable soup. It's still warm. You need a rest, you're not looking so good.”

 

Babette didn't hesitate for a moment.

“Batisti,” she said.

Batisti. Shit! Why hadn't I thought of him earlier? It was so obvious, it hadn't even entered my mind. Batisti had been a henchman of Mémé Guérini, the Marseilles boss in the Forties. He'd dropped out about twenty years ago, after the massacre at the Tanagra, a bar in the Vieux-Port, in which four rivals, all associates of Zampa's, had been slain. As Batisti was a friend of Zampa's, had he felt threatened himself? Babette didn't know.

He'd started a little import-export company and led a quiet life, respected by every gangster in Marseilles. He'd never taken sides in the gang wars, had appeared indifferent to power and money. He advised, served as a go-between, put guys together. For the Spaggiari heist in Nice, he was the one who organized the team that had gotten into the safes of the Société Générale in the dead of night, using blowtorches. When the time came to share out the loot, he refused to take any commission. He'd simply done a good turn. He became even more respected. And in the underworld, respect is the best life insurance.

One day, Manu showed up on his doorstep. It was something you had to do, if you didn't want to remain a small time holdup man all your life. Manu had hesitated for a long time. Since Ugo's departure, he'd become a loner. He didn't trust anyone. But holdups were more dangerous than they used to be. Plus, there was more competition now. For a lot of young Arabs, it had become a favorite sport. A few successful jobs and you could get together the money you needed to become a dealer and have control of a patch, maybe a whole housing project. Gaëtan Zampa, the man who'd rebuilt the Marseilles underworld, had just hanged himself in his cell. Le Mat and The Belgian were trying to avoid things fragmenting even more. New recruits were needed.

Manu started doing occasional jobs for The Belgian. Batisti and Manu had liked each other from the start. For Manu, Batisti was the father he'd never had. An ideal father, someone who was just like him, and never lectured him. For me, that was the worst kind of father. I didn't like Batisti. But I'd had a real father, and hadn't had anything to complain about.

“Batisti,” Babette repeated. “Obvious, sweetheart, when you think about it.”

She was very pleased with herself. She poured herself another
marc
from the Garlaban. “Chin-chin,” she said, raising her glass and smiling. After coffee, Honorine had gone back to her house to take a little nap. We were sitting in deckchairs under a parasol on the terrace, in our bathing costumes. The heat clung to our skins. I'd called Babette the night before, and had been lucky to find her in.

“So, handsome, have you finally decided to marry me?”

“No, just to invite you, gorgeous. Lunch at my place, tomorrow.”

“You want to ask me for something. Same old bastard! How long has it been? Huh? I bet you don't even know.”

“Er... about three months?”

“Eight, asshole! You must have been putting it about all over town.”

“Only with hookers.”

“Shame on you! And here was I sitting at home, moping.” She sighed. “OK, what's on the menu?”

“Cod tongues, grilled bass, and freshly made lasagne with fennel.”

“Are you dumb or something? I meant, what do you want to talk about? Just so's I can revise.”

“I want you to explain what's going on in the underworld at the moment.”

“Is this in connection with your buddies? I read about Ugo. I'm sorry.”

“Maybe.”

“Hey, what was that you said? Cod tongues? Are they good?”

“Never tried them, gorgeous. It'll be a first, for both of us.”

“Hmm. How about a first course right now? I'll bring my little nightdress, and I'll supply the rubbers. I have blue ones, to match my eyes!”

“The thing is, it's almost midnight, the sheets are dirty, and the clean ones haven't been ironed.”

“Bastard!” She'd laughed and hung up.

I'd known Babette for nearly twenty-five years. I'd met her one night at the Péano. She'd just been hired as a proofreader on
La Marseillaise
. We'd had an affair, the kind people had in those days. It might last a night, or a week. Never more than that.

We'd met again at the press conference where the reorganization of the Neighborhood Surveillance Squads was announced. With me as the guest star. She'd become a journalist, specializing in local news, then had left the paper to go freelance. She worked regularly for
Le Canard enchainé
, and often did investigative pieces for both daily and weekly papers. She knew a lot more about crime, the underworld and the politics of law and order than I did. She was a walking encyclopedia. Cute, too. Good enough to eat. There was a touch of the Botticelli Madonnas about her. But you had only to look in her eyes to see it wasn't God that inspired her, but life. And all the pleasures that went with it.

We had another affair, as brief as the first one. But we continued seeing each other from time to time. We'd have dinner, and spend the night together. Sometimes a whole weekend. She didn't expect anything, and I didn't ask for anything. We got on with our lives, until the next time. Until the day there wasn't a next time. And the last time, we'd both known it was the last time.

I'd started cooking early in the morning, listening to old blues songs by Lightnin' Hopkins. After washing the bass, I'd filled it with fennel, then drizzled olive oil over it. Then I made the lasagne sauce. The rest of the fennel had simmered gently in salt water, with a touch of butter. In a well-oiled pan, I gently fried slivers of onion, garlic and finely chopped pepper. A spoonful of vinegar soup, then I added tomatoes that I'd cut into little cubes and plunged in boiling water. When the water evaporated, I added the fennel.

I was finally calming down. Cooking had that effect on me. My mind could escape the twisted labyrinth of thought and concentrate on smells and tastes. And pleasure.

Babette arrived just as
Last Night Blues
was playing and I was pouring myself a third
pastis
. She was wearing very tight-fitting black jeans, a polo shirt—blue to match her eyes—and a white cotton cap on her long, curly hair. We were more or less the same age, but she never seemed to get any older. The tiny wrinkles around her eyes or at the corners of her lips merely added to her seductive power. She knew it and made skillful use of it. It always had the same effect on me. She went straight over to the frying pan and sniffed, then offered me her lips.