Total Chaos (8 page)

“I'm going to find her, Mouloud. Don't worry.”

I gave him my nicest smile. The smile of the good cop you can trust. I remembered something Leila had said, talking about her brothers. “When it's late, and one of them hasn't come home, we get worried. Anything can happen in this place.” Now it was my turn to be worried.

Rachid was alone in front of Block C12, sitting on a skateboard. He stood up when he saw me come out of the building, picked up his skateboard, and vanished into the lobby. I supposed he was telling me to go fuck myself and my mother. But I didn't care. When I got to my car in the parking lot, I saw it didn't have a single new scratch.

A
heat haze enveloped Marseilles. I was driving along the highway, with the windows down. I'd put on a B. B. King tape. Full volume. Nothing but the music. I didn't want to think. Not yet. All I wanted was to empty my head, to dispel the thoughts that were flooding in. I was on my way back from Aix and my worst fears had been confirmed. Leila really had disappeared.

I'd wandered through the empty faculty looking for the administration offices. I needed to know if Leila had gained her master's before I went to the residence. The answer was yes. With distinction. It was after that that she'd disappeared. Her old red Fiat Panda was still in the parking lot. I'd glanced inside, but nothing had been left lying around. Either it had broken down—which I hadn't checked—and she'd taken the bus, or someone had come to pick her up.

The super, a pudgy little man, his cap pulled down tight on his head, opened the door to Leila's room for me. He remembered seeing her come in, but not go out again. He himself had left around six in the evening.

“She hasn't done anything wrong, has she?”

“No, no. She's disappeared.”

“Shit,” he said, scratching his head. “She's a nice girl. Polite. Not like some of the French girls.”

“She is French.”

“That's not what I meant, monsieur.”

He fell silent. I'd upset him. He stood by the door while I checked out the room. I wasn't looking for anything in particular. I just wanted to make sure Leila hadn't suddenly decided to fly off to Acapulco for a change of scenery. The bed had been made. Above the sink, a toothbrush, toothpaste, beauty products. In the closet, her things, neatly arranged. A bag of dirty washing. On a table, sheets of paper, notepads, and books.

The book I was looking for was here.
Harbor Bar
by Louis Brauquier. A first edition, from 1926, on pure laid Lafuma, published by the review
Le Feu
. Numbered 36. I'd given it to her as a present.

It was the first time I'd parted with one of the books I had in my house. They belonged to Manu and Ugo as much as to me. They were the great treasure of our teenage years. I'd often dreamed that one day they would bring the three of us back together. The day Manu and Ugo finally forgave me for being a cop. The day I admitted that it was easier to be a cop than a criminal and I could embrace them like long-lost brothers, with tears in my eyes. When that day came, I knew I'd read the poem by Brauquier that ended with these words:

 

For a long time I searched for you

Night of the lost night.

 

We'd discovered Brauquier's poems in Antonin's second-hand bookstore.
Fresh Water for Ships, Beyond Suez, Freedom of the Seas.
We were seventeen. Antonin was recovering from a heart attack. We stopped blowing our money on the pinball machines, and took it in turn to mind the store. It was a chance to indulge our grand passion, old books. The novels, travel books and poems I read had a particular smell. The smell of cellars. An almost spicy smell, a mixture of dust and grease. Verdigris. Books today don't have a smell. They don't even smell of print.

I'd found the original edition of
Harbor Bar
one morning, emptying some boxes Antonin had never opened, and taken it home with me. I leafed through the book, with its yellowed pages, closed it, and put it in my pocket. I looked at the super.

“I'm sorry for what I said earlier. I'm a bit on edge.”

He shrugged. He was the kind of guy who must be used to other people putting him down.

“Did you know her?”

I didn't answer, but gave him my card. Just in case.

 

I'd opened the window and lowered the blind. I was exhausted. I was longing for a cold beer. But, before anything else, I had to do a report on Leila's disappearance and pass it on to the missing persons bureau. Then Mouloud would need to sign a request for a search. I'd called him. I could hear the hopelessness in his voice, the sense of misery that grabs hold of you and won't let you go. “We'll find her.” That was all I could say. Behind the words, a chasm opened up. I imagined him sitting at his table, not moving, eyes staring into the distance.

Mouloud's image gave way to Honorine's, this morning, in her kitchen. I'd gone there at seven, to tell her about Ugo. I didn't want her to find out from the newspapers. Auch's squad had been very discreet. There was only a short paragraph on the inside pages. A dangerous criminal, wanted by the police of several countries, had been shot dead yesterday as he was getting ready to open fire on the police. There were a few details about his life, but no mention of why Ugo was considered dangerous, or what crimes he'd committed.

Zucca's death had made the headlines. The journalists all kept to the same version. Zucca wasn't a famous gangster like Mémé Guérini or, more recently, Gaëtan Zampa, Jacky Le Mat or Francis the Belgian. It wasn't even certain he'd ever killed anyone, or maybe just one or two people, to prove himself. He was the son of a lawyer, and a lawyer himself. Basically, he was a manager. Since Zampa had killed himself in prison, he'd been running the Marseilles mafia's empire. Steering well clear of family feuds or battles for territory.

His execution had gotten everyone nervous. Was it the start of a gang war? Marseilles really didn't need this right now. The city's economic downturn was already a heavy enough burden to bear. SNCM, the company that ran the ferry service to Corsica, was threatening to take its business elsewhere, Toulon for instance, or La Ciotat, a former naval shipyard 25 miles from Marseilles. For months, there'd been a dispute between the company and the longshoremen over their status. The longshoremen had had a monopoly of hiring and firing on the waterfront since 1947, but all that was in the balance now.

It was a trial of strength, and the city was holding its breath for the outcome. In all the other ports, they'd surrendered. Even if the city had to die, for the Marseilles longshoremen it was a question of honor. Honor was central to Marseilles life. “You have no honor,” was the worst insult you could say to someone. You could kill a man for the sake of honor. Your wife's lover, the guy who'd insulted your mother, or wronged your sister.

That was why Ugo had come back. For the sake of honor. Manu's honor. Lole's honor. The honor of our youth, our shared friendship. Our memories.

“He shouldn't have come back.”

Honorine had looked up from her coffee cup. I could see it in her eyes: that wasn't the thing that was tormenting her. It was the trap I was walking into. Did I have honor? I was the last of the three. The one who inherited all the memories. Could a cop take the law into his own hands? Make sure justice was done? Did anyone even care about justice when it was just criminals killing criminals? That was what I saw in Honorine's eyes. She was answering her own questions: yes, yes, yes again, and finally no. She could already see me lying in the gutter. With five bullets in my back, like Manu. Or three, like Ugo. Three or five, the number didn't matter. Just one was enough to end up face down in the gutter. And that was something Honorine didn't want. I was the last, the sole survivor. The most honorable thing a survivor could do was survive. If you stayed on your feet, stayed alive, you were the winner.

I'd left her sitting over her coffee. I'd looked at her. She looked the way my mother might have looked. She had the ravaged face of a woman who'd already lost two of her sons in a war that didn't concern her. She turned away to look at the sea.

“He should have come to see me,” she'd said.

 

Since it opened, I'd only used Line 1 of the subway about ten times. Castellane to La Rose. From the hip neighborhoods—the new downtown—with their bars, restaurants and cinemas, to North Marseilles, which was a place you didn't hang out in if you didn't have to.

For the last few days, a group of Arab kids had been causing trouble on the line. Subway security was inclined to favor strong arm tactics. That was something all Arabs understood. The same old song. Except that it had never worked. Not on the subway, and not on the main line railroad. Every time heads were cracked, there'd been reprisals. A blockade on the Marseilles-Aix line, after the Septèmes-les-Vallons station, a year ago. Stones thrown at the train at the Frais-Vallon subway station, six months ago.

So I'd suggested the other method. Talking to the gang. In my own way. The subway cowboys had laughed. But for once, the management ignored them and gave me a free hand.

Pérol and Cerutti came with me. It was six in the evening. The ride was about to start. An hour before, I'd dropped by the garage where Driss worked. I wanted to talk to him about Leila.

He was just finishing for the day. While I waited for him, I talked to his boss. A firm believer in contracts for apprentices. Especially when the apprentices did as much work as the regular staff. And Driss pulled out all the stops when it came to work. He mainlined on axle grease. By evening he'd overdosed. It wasn't as bad for you as crack or heroin. At least that's what they said, and I believed it. But it screwed with your head all the same. Driss still had to prove himself. And don't forget to say yes sir, no sir. And keep your mouth permanently shut, because, what the hell, he was only a dirty Arab, after all. For the moment, he was holding out.

I'd taken him to the bar on the corner. The Disque bleu. The bar was filthy, like its owner. You could see from his face that this was a place where Arabs were allowed to play the lottery and the tote and drink standing up. Even though I tried to give myself a vaguely Gary Cooper look, I almost had to show him my police badge in order to have two beers at a table. I was still too tanned for some people.

“Have you stopped training?” I said, coming back with the beers.

On my advice, he'd enrolled in a boxing gym in Saint-Louis, run by an old friend of mine named Georges Mavros. Georges had been a young hopeful, who, after winning a few fights, had had to choose between boxing and the woman he loved. He got married, and became a truck driver. By the time he found out that his wife was sleeping around whenever he was on the road, it was too late to be a champion. He dumped his wife and his job, sold what he had, and opened a gym.

Driss had all the qualities needed to be a good boxer. He had intelligence and passion. He could be as good as his idols, Stéphane Haccoun and Akim Tafer. Mavros would make him a champion. I truly believed that. But in that too he'd have to hold out.

“Too much work. The hours are too long. And the boss is like a sponge. He's always on my back.”

“You didn't phone. Mavros was expecting you.”

“Do you have any news about Leila?”

“That's why I came to see you. Do you know if she has a boyfriend?”

He looked at me as if I was putting him on. “Aren't you her guy?”

“I'm her friend. Just like I'm your friend.”

“I thought you were humping her.”

I almost hit him. There are certain expressions that make me throw up. That one in particular. Pleasure involves respect, and respect starts with words. That's something I've always thought.

“I don't hump women. I love them... Try to, anyhow...”

“And Leila?”

“What do you think?”

“I like you.”

“Then let it go. Young guys like you are a dime a dozen.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I don't know where she is, Driss. Shit, just because I never slept with her doesn't mean I don't love her.”

“We'll find her.”

“That's what I told your father. And that's why I'm talking to you now.”

“She doesn't have a boyfriend. Just us. Me, Kader, Dad. College. Her girlfriends. And you. She never stops talking about you. Find her. That's your job!”

Before he left, he gave me the telephone numbers of two of Leila's girlfriends, Jasmine and Karine, whom I'd met once, and Kader in Paris. But we couldn't see why she would have gone to Paris without telling him. Even if Kader had problems, she'd have said something. Anyhow, Kader was clean. He was the one who kept the grocery store going.

 

There were eight of them. Sixteen, seventeen years of age. They got on at Vieux-Port. We were waiting for them at Saint Charles mainline station. They'd gathered at the front end of a carriage, and were standing on the seats, using the walls and windows as tomtoms, beating on them in time to the music from a ghetto blaster. Rap, of course. I knew it. IAM, one of the best Marseilles bands. They were often played on Radio Grenouille, the equivalent of Nova in Paris. It played all the rap and ragga bands in Marseilles and the south. IAM, Fabulous Trobadors, Bouducon, Hypnotik, Black Lions. And Massilia Sound System, which had sprung up in the middle of neo-Nazi territory, just south of the soccer stadium. The band had given the supporters of OM a taste for ragga and hip hop that had then spread to the whole city.

Marseilles was a place where people liked to talk a lot. Rap was just talk, and lots of it. Our Jamaican cousins had brothers here. The rappers talked the way people talked in bars. About Paris, the centralized State, the decaying suburbs, the night buses. Their lives, their problems. The world, seen from Marseilles.