Malavita (24 page)

“Downtown?” Joey asked.

Terrified of betraying himself, Warren wondered if this was a trap. Was Joey really looking for the town centre, or was he just confirming his intuition? If he got it wrong, Warren could already imagine himself thrown onto the tracks and reduced to pulp by the oncoming train. He hesitated and then responded, pointing his hand in the right direction. The loudspeaker announced that the express was coming into the station. A few people got out. The ghosts had disappeared.

He was now marked for ever by the fear of death. Nothing would ever be the same. Now he was confronted with the first real choice of his new life as an adult: should he go off and conquer the New World, or should he stay with his family now, at this, the moment of truth? The train drew out of Cholong, leaving Warren standing on the platform.

*

Back on the Place de la Libération, right in the middle of the festive crowd, Belle was allowing herself a few last moments of wandering around. She envied all these families exercising their right to happiness. If only she had had the good luck to be born into an underprivileged family, to a life of suffering, or to mad people, living outside reason, or even retarded ones, with no clear thoughts about the world around them. Instead, Fate had decreed something different for her, and she had been dealt a father who was capable of sticking a man's fingers in a door and then slamming that door. This same father, who had been so gifted at that type of activity, had risen through the ranks to control a whole territory, like a mayor or a deputy – but feared a great deal more than either of those, since he had the power of life or death over anyone who crossed his path. And to cap it all, he had decided to denounce this parallel world to the authorities, condemning himself and his family to live like hunted creatures. Belle had been both exiled and banished, and there was no place left for her on this earth.

She laughed happily at the surrounding gaiety, and then headed towards the big wheel. Its thirty-six baskets, filled with people, would soon empty out to make way for the next lot of passengers. Without worrying about the practical technicalities of her plan (How would she get under the safety bar? What would be the right moment to climb onto the edge and jump from the highest point? Where would she hit the ground?), she was filled with a strange sense of elation. She would only get one shot at it, but her suicide would be as great a success as everything else she did. She would take her revenge on a cruel and cynical world with this supremely romantic gesture. She approached the turnstile, bought her ticket and waited for the wheel to stop.

*

Matt and his troop, furious at not having found Giovanni's body, joined up with the four other members of the gang in the Place de la Libération. The time had come for a council of war. Jerry thought they should use what was known as the Brazilian method of spreading terror in a city centre with a trapped population: this consisted in opening fire on a public building, preferably a police station or town hall, and, as they had done with the fishing hut, firing on it until the whole building caved in on itself. Greg even suggested that they should save time by simply firing a second rocket from the AT-4 Viper. Franck and Hector said they'd rather avoid going that far: perhaps they could proceed
mano a mano
, and send a general appeal to people's goodwill rather than spreading panic. This fucking funfair could be turned to good use. They had spotted the deputy, the mayor, the chief of police and his six men, all in uniform: all they needed to do was neutralize them and then make use of them. As far as the rest of the population was concerned, Franck suggested sticking to the usual recipe for obtaining information: two thirds intimidation, one third bribery.

During this phase of the operation, the men were able to really express themselves, and make full use of their skills. In Le Daufin restaurant, which opened onto the square, the mayor of Cholong, the deputy for the Eure and the police chief were forced to interrupt their aperitif by the sight of five revolvers pointing at them. They thought at first that this was some sort of practical joke, but then Matt showed them, through the window, what had become of the forces of law and order: six uneasy-looking gendarmes had already accepted the status of hostage, under the threat of an MP5 9mm submachine gun. To the question “Where shall we put them?” Jerry had a jokey answer that Matt, to his surprise, thought was brilliant. And so the inhabitants of Cholong, unable to react in any way to such a strange situation, were treated to the sight of a curious procession filing through the funfair: the grandees and the gendarmes, surrounded
manu militari
by a handful of untidy tourists. How could one imagine that these shabby tourists were capable of emptying tower blocks with baseball bats, and of taking possession of entire districts as if they were a battalion of GIs, or of controlling, for security purposes, all the comings and goings around several buildings during a summit meeting? Matt instructed them to place the muzzle of a .38 Special against the head of the big-wheel operator, just to ensure his cooperation. The previous passengers disembarked, still reeling from their ride. Hector and Jerry, doubled up laughing, pushed each hostage into a basket.

Belle, her ticket in her hand, found herself ejected from the platform, along with all the others waiting their turn. Like her brother before her, she immediately recognized this form of violence. And like her brother before her, she suddenly felt surrounded by ghosts. These were the guys who used to treat her like a princess, escorting her wherever she wanted to go. If she'd asked them for the moon when she was ten, they would have thrown in the sun as well. And now these same guys were sabotaging her suicide bid? Was her life just going to be a never-ending hell, with God on their side, determined to do her in?

Matt waited until the wheel started turning, and then instructed his interpreter to take over. The latter stepped up to the loudspeaker. His voice echoed over the whole square. He issued a warning to the public: there was no threat to the inhabitants of Cholong, and everything would go quite smoothly as long as there was no resistance to the actions of this small group of Americans – he didn't quite know how to describe them, and the word “delegation” came to mind. As well as this, there would be a reward of two hundred thousand euros for anyone who helped capture the American writer known as Frederick Blake, dead or alive. During the announcement, Chi-Chi and Guy passed around the notorious
Times
article about the Manzoni trial, which they had photocopied and were now distributing like a tract. Finally Matt told the interpreter to drive around the town making the same announcement from the candyfloss van.

There were some, however, who stepped forwards, wanting some explanations about this “state of siege.” Matt suggested to Hector and Greg that it might be an idea to prove that they meant business. The latter, holding their MP5 9mms, asked the doubters to move aside as fast as possible, and then emptied their guns into the local artists' stands. Vases and clay pots, glazed sculptures, glass lampshades – all flew up in thousands of pieces. Seascapes and portraits were perforated through and through under the helpless gaze of their artists. The charity stall, which Maggie was in charge of, was reduced to dust. There followed a terrified stampede out of the square; the music and the roundabouts fell silent, giving way to cries of panic which took a long time to die down. After a while, all that could now be heard was the rusty metallic creak of the baskets on the big wheel going round and round.

*

Giovanni Manzoni had never suffered such a cruel reversal, even at the height of the wars between the families.

His work had been destroyed before being completed. It had been still-born.

All those hours he had spent at work, pondering every comma, carefully considering each verb before using it. He had even gone so far as to open a dictionary. All the love that had gone into this work, the fruit of his loins, the mirror of his soul, the song of his heart, all gone for ever. All that determination to seek out the truth about himself, without hiding anything – he had been offering his readers the gift of his entire life. And now it had all been reduced to dust in a few seconds, dust and rubble.

This was worse than looking death in the face. Fred felt as though he had never even existed.

Earlier on, listening to his wife's curses, he thought he had touched rock bottom. Now he understood that all pain is relative. You think you've lost everything, and then you find there's so much more to lose. In less than an hour, Fred had buried his future, and a moment later his past had disappeared as well.

As he felt his strength ebbing, he suffered a strange hallucination.

A cohort of zombies filed through the room, men of all ages, with caved-in skulls, bodies riddled with oozing holes, drowned men with eyes popping out of their heads, a great parade of all the victims, direct and indirect, of Giovanni Manzoni and his gang. These ghosts bent over Fred, who lay prostrated on the floor, and gave him a little tap on the shoulder, enjoying this divine moment of revenge. They had waited so many years in silence, in Limbo or under the ground, waiting to reappear at the right moment. They had come to tell Fred that, by attacking innocent people, Gianni Manzoni had shattered the natural order of the universe, and the time had come to set that right.

Quintiliani, who had never been strong on retaliation, didn't have the heart to attack Fred:
What you're going through is nothing compared to what you've inflicted so many times on strangers who didn't fall in with your tyrannical ways. So how do you feel now, deep down, Don Manzoni?

“Say something, Fred. Just one word.”

“Vendetta.”

“What do you mean?”

“We're going in there, Quint. You and me.”

“? . . .”

“We'll get them, you and me. There can't be more than ten of them.”

“Are you mad, Manzoni?”

“Don't count on any reinforcements. If we don't get them, they're going to get us. And until then they're going to do a bit of damage.”

“. . .”

“Don't think about it, it's an opportunity you'll never get again. No trial, no years of gathering evidence to lock them up with, no lawyers to discredit your evidence. This is your one chance to finally wipe out the flower of organized crime. You'll enjoy it, and you'll be promoted for it. It will be a case of
force majeure
, and everyone will be happy.”

“There are a lot of them, Fred, and they're well equipped.”

“You've spent twenty years studying these guys' methods, and I've spent twenty years training and leading them, who's better qualified than us two?”

Quintiliani pretended to think it over, and made a show of indignation, but he had taken the decision from the moment he had requested the reinforcements: it had been made quite clear to him that the special forces would not intervene as long as the hostages were dangling in the air with guns trained on them. They had even actually made the suggestion that, as an FBI officer, he should operate at his own discretion.

The federal agent now had the opportunity to behave, with complete impunity, in just the same way as those Mafia scumbags – how could he turn down such an opportunity? He, Thomas Quintiliani, would grab this chance to act according to his own set of rules, to be judge and executioner, to pull the trigger without the slightest compunction, or ethical doubts. As a boy, he had, like all the teenagers who hung out on Mulberry, been tempted to join a gang. They were the heroes, not the guys in blue who patrolled the streets with their coshes. And although once he grew up he had finally chosen his side, he had never forgotten his fascination with the made men, the goodfellas. And now here was Fate offering him a chance to exorcise a demon that sometimes reappeared in his most shameful dreams.

Fred, for his part, was also fulfilling an old fantasy: to pull the trigger with a good conscience, on the right side of the law and with the blessing of Uncle Sam. With a bit of luck, he might get a medal. All good things come to those who wait.

*

Some of the townspeople had fled to neighbouring towns to get help, others had gathered in the centre to try and decide how to react to the siege, but most of the population had simply gone home, turned on TVs and radios and started ringing round. When it very soon became clear that there was nothing more to hope for from the authorities, despite all the procedures and high-level communications, the inhabitants of Cholong finally understood, no doubt for the first time in their lives, that they were on their own.

In a café in the La Chapelle district, thirty people tried to address the situation, and to find some way of reacting to the threat. Some wanted to analyse it, while others called for immediate action before the situation reached a point of no return.

In the meeting room, a hundred others listened to a translation of the
Times
piece being read out loud, and heard about the Blake/Manzoni past. All felt betrayed. A mafioso! They had welcomed criminals into their midst, opened their school to the spawn of the Devil. The French state must have been complicit, as well as the CIA, the FBI, Interpol, the Pentagon, the UN, and they had all picked on Cholong-sur-Avre! On top of it all, the fête had been ruined and their lives put in danger all because of that cursed family. As indignation reached boiling point, a group of men formed a militia to track down the bastard and hand him over as soon as possible to those hunting him down.

A few individuals chose to act alone, in the secret hope of getting the reward, which would be enough to keep them secure for a very long time.

The odd individual was observed, here and there, behaving strangely, but to no particular effect. Some saw this upheaval as a temporary crisis and rapidly discovered ways of profiting from the situation. Old grudges were brought to light by the urgency and the danger; this could be the perfect moment to settle a personal score.