Solea Page 13

  I felt exhausted. Mavros’s death had at last sunk in. It was as if his corpse had taken up residence in my body, as if I was its coffin. That hour’s sleep had drained me of all the emotions that had overwhelmed me when I saw his face for the last time.

  With a steady hand, Hélène Pessayre had uncovered the top of Mavros’s face and pulled the sheet down to his chin. She had cast a furtive glance at me. It was just a formality, identifying him. Slowly, I’d leaned over George’s body, tenderly stroked his graying hair with the tips of my fingers, and kissed his forehead.

  “Goodbye, old friend,” I’d said through gritted teeth.

  Hélène Pessayre had taken me by the arm and led me quickly to the other side of the room. “Does he have any family?”

  His mother, Angelika, had gone back to Nauplia, in the south of the Peloponnese, after her husband’s death. His elder brother, Panayotis, had been living in New York for twenty years. Andreas, the youngest of the three brothers, lived in Fréjus. But Georges hadn’t spoken to him in ten years. He and his wife, who had voted Socialist in ’81, had switched to the PRP, and finally the National Front. As for Pascale, I didn’t really want to call her. I didn’t even know if I still had her number. She’d dropped out of Mavros’s life. Which meant she’d also dropped out of mine.

  “No,” I lied. “I was his only friend.”

  His last friend.

  Now, there was no one left in Marseilles I could call. Of course, there were still quite a few people I liked, like Didier Perez and a few others. But there was no one to whom I could say, “You remember . . .” That was what friendship was, all the memories you had in common that you could put on the table with a nice sea bass grilled in fennel. Only the words “You remember . . .” make it possible to confide your most intimate thoughts, those regions of yourself you feel most embarrassed about. For years, I’d unloaded my doubts, my fears, my anxieties on Mavros, and he’d driven me crazy with the way he was so certain about everything, the way he had cut and dried opinions about everything. And after a few bottles of wine, depending on our mood, we’d usually come to the conclusion that, whatever your attitude to life, joy and sorrow were nothing but a lottery.

  When I got to the Bourse Center, I did what I’d said I would. I managed to find a parking space without too much difficulty two levels underground, then took the escalator up to the mall. The air conditioning was a pleasant surprise. I could happily have spent the rest of the afternoon here. The place was crowded. The mistral had driven the people of Marseilles off the beaches, and they were killing time as best they could. Young guys especially. They could eye up the girls, and it cost less than a ticket for a movie.

  I’d wagered on the fact that one of the two Mafiosi would follow me. I’d also wagered on the fact that he wouldn’t be too happy to see me taking such an interest in the summer sales. So, after lingering for a while, looking at shirts and pants, I took the central escalator up to the second level. There, a metal footbridge led across Rue Bir-Hakeim and Rue de Fabres. Then I took another escalator back down to the Canebière. All the while, acting as casual as possible.

  The taxi stand was nearby. Five drivers were waiting by their cabs, desperate for customers.

  “Did you see this?” the driver I chose asked, showing me his windshield.

  It was covered with a fine layer of soot. That was when I noticed the flakes of ash coming down. The fire must be huge.

  “Fucking fire,” I said.

  “And fucking mistral! The fire’s spreading and no one can do anything. I don’t know how many firefighters and rescue workers they’ve sent. Fifteen hundred, eighteen hundred . . . But it’s coming from all directions now. They say it’s even reached Allauch.”

  Allauch!

  That was another village on the edge of Marseilles. A thousand people lived there. The fire was encroaching on the city’s green belt, stripping the forest bare. There were other villages in its path. Simiane, Mimet . . .

  “And of course, they’re busy protecting people and houses . . .”

  It was always the same story. The priority for the firefighters and the tanker planes—if and when they could fly—had to be the villas and the housing developments. But the question was why there weren’t strict rules that builders had to follow. Heavy shutters. Nebulizers. Water tanks. Firebreaks. Quite often, the fire engines couldn’t even get in between the houses and the front of the fire.

  “What are they saying about the mistral?”

  “It should die down during the night. Get weaker. I hope it’s true.”

  “So do I,” I said, thoughtfully.

  The fire was ahead of me. Yes, but not only the fire.

  “You can’t be sure, Fabio,” Félix said.

  He’d been surprised to see me. Especially in the afternoon. I visited him every two weeks. Usually after leaving Fonfon’s bar. We’d have an aperitif, and chat for a couple of hours. Céleste’s death had really shaken him. At first, we thought he was going to let himself die. He didn’t eat, and refused to go out. He didn’t even want to go fishing, and that was really a bad sign.

  Félix was only a Sunday fisherman. But he was part of the fishermen’s community in Vallon-des-Auffes. They were all Italians, from around Rapallo, Santa Margarita and Maria del Campo. Along with Bernard Grandona and Gilbert Georgi, he was responsible for organizing the local fishermen’s festival, the festival of Saint Pierre. Last year, Félix had taken me out in his boat to witness the ceremony from beyond the sea wall. The foghorn had blown, and flowers and petals had been strewn on the water in memory of those who’d died at sea.

  Honorine—who’d known Céleste since they were children—and Fonfon took turns with me in keeping Félix company. At weekends, we’d invite him to dinner. I’d come and fetch him, and take him back home later. Then one Sunday morning, he arrived at my house by boat. He’d been fishing. It was a fine catch. Sea bream, rainbow wrasse, and even a few gray mullet.

  “Dammit!” he laughed, as he climbed the steps to my terrace. “You haven’t even gotten the barbecue started.”

  For me, that moment was more moving than the Saint Pierre festival. It was a celebration of life over death. Of course, we drank to that, and for the umpteenth time Félix told us how, when his grandfather wanted to get married, he’d gone all the way to Rapallo to find a wife. Before he’d even finished, Fonfon, Honorine and I cried in unison, “And by boat, if you please!”

  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.”

  15.

  IN WHICH THE IMMINENCE OF AN EVENT

  CREATES A KIND OF BLACK HOLE

  They 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 co
rpses 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?”