Berthet takes out his Glock. Berthet puts a clip in the barrel. The nondemocratic cat is still silently yowling at him. Berthet would have liked to be sure the bullet is properly in place. You can always tell by the sound, but Berthet is still deaf.
Berthet opens fire. Berthet does not hear the irritated gunship-like noise the Glock lets out.
Berthet hits the grenade-throwing passenger first. Who is theatrically thrown off, who falls, who explodes all by himself on the pavement of rue de Belzunce.
Then Berthet changes his line of fire.
Then Berthet shifts into a new target acquisition phase.
Then Berthet thinks:
Motherfucker!
Then Berthet punches holes into the driver’s helmet. Four times.
The bike wobbles, the body rolls over, the bike keeps going on its side and stops at Berthet’s feet.
Now the enucleated waitress is sitting on the banquette, the Châteldon water is spreading, the Châteldon water is fizz-ing on the moleskin seat.
Counselor Morland is still and forever waiting for the nervous impulse that would allow his arm to bring the glass of Dilettante to his lips, which move spasmodically.
Berthet understands that his hearing has returned when Berthet hears:
the yowling of the reproachful cat; Counselor Morland humming Sacha Distel’s song “La Belle Vie” through a reddish mush;
the bike’s motor running in neutral; the police sirens.
Hélène Bastogne. Shit.
And to think that Berthet missed the grouse with foie gras.
Berthet puts the Glock back in its holster, gulps down the last of the Dilettante directly from the bottle.
And Berthet takes off.
Hélène Bastogne.
3.
Unlike Berthet, Hélène Bastogne loves the 10th arrondisse-ment. Hélène Bastogne lives there. An apartment on Place Franz Liszt, beneath Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and the charming little Cavaillé-Coll park. Not very far from where Counselor Morland is almost done spilling the top of his skull into the Dilettante, where Berthet rushes out of the carnage scene and heads toward the Gare du Nord.
Hélène Bastogne is an investigative journalist, and like all investigative journalists Hélène Bastogne is being manipulated. Hélène Bastogne does not know this, but even if Hélène Bas-togne did suspect it, Hélène Bastogne doesn’t give a damn because Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
The solution would be a novel, thinks Hélène Bastogne. There is a blue sky out there. A novel in which Hélène Bas-togne would tell everything. The blue November sky and the wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park.
Hélène Bastogne concentrates on the cock inside her. A novel would be the solution for a number of problems. But Hélène Bastogne does not know the names of the trees. Hé-lène Bastogne regrets this. Actually, a novel would solve nothing. Hélène Bastogne feels the cock inside her getting soft.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
Let’s hope he doesn’t come before she does. The cock belongs to Lover #2. Lover #1 is a graying publisher from rue de Fleurus. Lover #2 is his editor-in-chief. Lover #2 has come to check on Hélène Bastogne’s work. Confessions of a secret service guy. Lover #2 has promised to take her to a new bar on Canal Saint-Martin. Hélène Bastogne doesn’t know the name of the bar. Hélène Bastogne doesn’t know anything right now, except her oncoming pleasure.
A novel. A novel that would speak of pleasure, of the wind in the trees whose names she does not know. Of the bars along Canal Saint-Martin, of the 10th arrondissement, of Lover #2’s prick, Lover #1’s prick too.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
Lover #2’s prick is regaining some strength. Or perhaps it’s because Hélène Bastogne, who is riding it, has slightly changed her angle. And that’s better for him. Don’t go soft, please, don’t go soft.
Explosive confessions, as they say. The guy came to the paper two weeks ago. The guy was wearing a beautiful Armani suit. Forty-five at most. Soft eyes, deep voice, close-cropped hair. The guy began to talk.
Wind in the trees, wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park, still. The top of the one Hélène Bastogne sees through the large window is moving to the same rhythm as Lover #2’s cock.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
The guy might have been a good lover too. The guy said really interesting things in this preelection period. From the Ivory Coast to the riots in the projects just outside Paris, the true, bloody poetry of secret intelligence.
Names too.
Then he left. Then he came back the next day. And he said really interesting things again, the game with the dormant Islamist cells, the journalists abducted in Iraq, and he gave names again, and numbers.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
Things come and go, which is normal in a consumerist society. The wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park, Lover #2’s cock inside her, the confessions of the secret agent in the Armani suit, everything comes and goes in Hélène Bastogne’s world. A novel to say that. But Hélène Bastogne wouldn’t know how. Hélène Bastogne could almost kick herself for not knowing.
Hélène Bastogne needs redemption. Quickly. Hélène Bastogne needs to come. Quickly. Like everyone else, she no longer believes in God. Perhaps a novel. But Hélène Bastogne wouldn’t know how. To begin with:
she doesn’t know the names of trees;
she doesn’t know how to pray;
she doesn’t know if the spy hasn’t conned her a little;
she doesn’t know if she can write.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
Yet Hélène Bastogne is no fool. Lover #2 is an editor-in-chief first and foremost. When he listened to the MP3 recording of the operative, he found it so wild that he danced around Hélène Bastogne’s office at the paper—“It’s a bombshell, baby!”—a pitiful parody of rappers by a fifty-, soon sixty-something baby boomer with an indecent income.
And afterward, he had wanted to fuck Hélène Bastogne. Logical. For the moment Hélène Bastogne, thirty-two in a month, likes the cynical animality of it. Lover #2 is no longer that abstract power managing the editorial board like some tyrannical Nero, who makes trips to New York and back in one day, who meets tired and greedy faces in the drawing rooms of luxurious hotels, who takes telephone calls with a cell nickel-plated like a handgun.
No, Lover #2 suddenly had a body. Hormones, adrenaline, cologne. Slightly trembling hands, moist temples: the flashes of amphetamines, the flashes of triumph, the flashes of his exultant gonads. A spy who’s ratting, a spy spilling names, dates, evidence, a spy who’s going to explode the paper’s circulation.
Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
A stronger gust of wind. The nameless trees in Cavaillé-Coll park are moving. Lover #2 is coming. By distilling all this little by little, they can double the sales over two weeks.
Hélène Bastogne topples onto Lover #2’s torso. Then slips down beside him on a Bordeaux spread. Crumpled La Perla un- derwear. A Mac screen is pulsing. Hélène Bastogne buries her face in a sweaty neck, near a madly beating carotid artery.
“So, baby, can I take you to this new bar? It’s on Quai de Jemmapes.”
“If you like.”
Lover #2 is a typical baby boomer. Lover #2 likes to exhibit girls who are half his age with a third of his income in lame places like Canal Saint-Martin, which has completely turned into a museum by now. Always in the hope of bumping into the ghost of Arletty. Asshole. For her trouble she’ll play the whore a little and get him to buy her some stuff at Antoine et Lili, a trendy clothing boutique a little farther down, on Quai de Valmy. The fact is, Hélène Bastogne is not in a very good mood.
Because Hélène Bastogne did not come. As usual.
4.
“We missed Berthet, sir.”
“You’re really dumb, Moreau. Did you subcontract again?”
“Yes, sir.”
“With your tightwad savings, you’re going to land us up shit creek. Was that you, the killing in the 10th? I just heard it on France Info.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who are the dead?”
“My two subcontractors, three civilians, and Morland.”
“You killed the counselor? You’re so stupid, Moreau.”
“If the counselor was with Berthet, it means the counselor was talking, right?”
“You’re an idiot, an asshole,
and
a moron. And on top of that, you wrecked one of the nicest restaurants in Paris. Where are you calling from?”
“From the Brady—”
“The alley or Mocky’s movie theater?”
“A movie theater, actually, yes, sir. The room is full of black guys jerking off, sir. Whose movie theater did you say this is?”
“Mocky’s, Moreau, Mocky’s. You’re completely ignorant on top of it all. Stay there, Moreau, and wait for orders. I’m going to fix your dumb blunders.”
They hang up.
Moreau is not happy. Moreau is forced to sit in the dark movie theater.
Moreau is forced to watch a film in black-and-white with the young Bourvil who steals from church collection boxes.
Moreau is forced to stay there with black guys who are jerking off.
Berthet will pay for this.
5.
Berthet goes into the Gare du Nord. The caryatids are making fun of him in the blue November sky. Especially the Dunkirk one, it seems to him. A train to Dunkirk, why not? And then a freighter.
And then what?
Berthet is totally losing it. Berthet knows he’s got to get a grip on himself, and fast. This isn’t Conrad. This isn’t Graham Greene.
Berthet has The Unit after his ass. Berthet has a torn suit that smells of cordite and langoustine. Berthet still has one clip for his Glock, two for his Tanfoglio. Berthet knows that going home isn’t an option. The Unit is waiting for him, of course.
Berthet doesn’t live far from here, though, Passage Truil-lot in the 11th, but rue du Faubourg du Temple, the border between the two arrondissements, suddenly seems to him impossible to cross, like the Berlin Wall must have been for Morland before. Poor Morland.
But listen, all this is kind of Morland’s fault.
It was Morland who told Berthet to talk to that journalist, Hélène Bastogne. Saying this was going to be a big help to The Unit. To pass himself off as a guy from the Service. To destabilize the Service by ratting on the Service. Because during this preelection period, The Unit is still loyal to the Old Man, the President, while the Service is rather in favor of the Opposition Candidate, the Pretender. And the Old Man wants to take down the Pretender.
At least that’s how Morland explained it.
Internal politics, what a pain in the ass, thinks Berthet, as he steps into a terrifically impersonal neon and stainless steel café.
Inside there are people with that strained look of all departing travelers, and other people who have that strained look of people who aren’t departing travelers but who have nothing better to do than watch the ones who are.
Yes, internal politics is a pain in the ass, thinks Berthet, who doesn’t mind dying in Algiers, Abidjan, or Rome, but not two kilometers from home in an arrondissement where there are nothing but train stations, hospitals, and whores.
In other words, an arrondissement for hypothetical departures to rainy places, incurable diseases, and paid orgasms with spots of melanin on callipygian asses.
Yes, internal politics is a drag.
And Jesus, talk about those train stations! Berthet thinks the Gare de l’Est is even more depressing than the Gare du Nord. The Gare du Nord plays it futurist and Orwellian, but the Gare de l’Est still reeks of the draftees who went off twice in twenty years to get slaughtered on the Eastern fronts.
Furthermore, the paradox is that Berthet has hideouts even The Unit doesn’t know about in a dozen European and African cities, but here in Paris, in the 10th arrondissement— nothing, nada, zilch.
Berthet finally understands, though a bit late, a precept from
The Art of War
by Sun Tzu. A book that everyone at The Unit claims to be reading, it’s their bible and the pretext for seminars after Commando Training in Guyana.
Berthet used to think that reading Sun Tzu was a bit of a show-off, a little “We-at-The-Unit-are-philosopher-warriors,” a pose, really.
But now Berthet has to admit that the old Chink was right: “
What is essential is to ensure peace in the cities of your nation
.” In other words, peace would be a studio known only to himself, equipped with:
clean suits
weapons with no serial numbers
a set of false identity papers
medicine in the bathroom cabinet
some cash
cell phones with local numbers
These studios do exist. The closest is in Delft, between Brussels and Amsterdam. Delft—that sure does Berthet a lot of good.
The road might be a possibility. Straight toward Porte de la Chapelle, the highway to Lille. Yeah, right.
Berthet orders a coffee at the counter. Berthet thinks this over. Berthet understands. The Unit wants him dead to eliminate the source of leaks to the Service. The Unit, once the dirty work has been done, wants to keep its hands clean.
Berthet feels very depressed. If The Unit has decided to do away with him like that, it’s because The Unit must think he’s outdated, old, a loser.
Berthet could call Hélène Bastogne, tell her about having been conned. That wouldn’t do much good, just piss off The Unit. Whatever he does now anyway, he’s definitely out of the game.
Berthet wants to take a piss. Berthet goes up to the first floor of the café. To get into the john, you have to put fifty euro centimes into a kind of piggy bank on the door handle.
Clearly, a homeless bum is waiting for Berthet to go in and for Berthet to leave the door open when he comes out. The stinginess of this café, the bum’s stinginess, the stinginess of internal politics, all this irritates Berthet.
In the world as it was before, you didn’t pay to piss. To accept this is more proof that a submission chip has indeed been implanted in all people born after the oil crisis.