“Diego, it’s me, Keller. You’re still working at that clinic in Poissy?... Okay, get a room ready and call the medics. I’m on my way.”
Then the man leans over Vania again. His eyes red, his voice shaking. No one can hear him so he whispers against her hair: My angel, my love, my little girl. He kneels down on the acrylic carpeting, picks up the battered body, and after some hesitation, leaves through the backstairs.
In a dingy room down in the basement of his precinct house, Nico Diamantis throws a last slap in the face of a local dealer.
“Dealing drugs is bad, Rachid.”
“Fuck you.”
The Greek raises his eyes to the sky, sweeps the legs of the chair from under the teenager’s feet, and kicks him repeatedly. The kid folds himself into a fetal position. Nico gets tired of him, turns away, and leaves, locking the door behind him.
Office. A thousand pounds of files. Lhostis, breathing heavily, walks toward him. Cholesterol and Marlboros. Tubular armchair.
“I checked the three neighborhood police stations like you told me. Nobody.”
“The apartment?’
“I went in through the back door; she’s gone.”
“The morgue?”
“I called, they haven’t seen a black woman in five days. You sure she was dead?”
“I’m not sure, no. I don’t know. She wasn’t moving and I left when I heard someone banging on the door.”
“You’re in deep shit.”
“Thanks. You’re a real help.”
“What about the chauffeur, Keller?”
Now Nico is thinking. It’s a painful task, he’s not used to it.
“Yeah, I see. He’s waiting in the car, she’s not back, he knocks on the door, he knocks harder, and...”
“And what?”
“A hospital.”
“No way. You think he’s an idiot?”
“Sort of.”
“A private clinic, Nico. We’re gonna have to go through the whole phone book to find that stupid bitch. All this crap so you can show off in front of Noémie. I can’t believe it.”
“No one touches my family. Go on the Internet, it’ll be faster.”
While Lhostis is settling down behind his computer, Nico looks distractedly at his files. Then thinks. Vania. The apartment. I’m so stupid.
He takes his jacket, goes down to the garage where the Picasso is dozing off. Two lines of coke on the dashboard. Wow, what a boost.
He rips the car out of the garage and steers for rue des Lombards. He doesn’t see the Mercedes pulling out behind him.
Rue Saint Martin, Turbigo, then the underground parking garage of the Forum des Halles. He finally decided to rent a spot there year round to avoid getting depressed over the hunt for a space on the street. Third level, underground.
He makes a face.
Three
Homeless guys
Sharing
One
Muddy
Big Mac.
At the end of the second underground level, a hole between two Clios. He rushes in. Cell phone. A little kiss to Noémie then Nico thinks again: I’ve got to find me a whore. Okay. He gets out of the car, heads for the elevator. Keller, squatting behind the car to the left, dives into the cop and stabs him three times near his heart. For good measure he sticks the silencer of his Beretta into Nico’s mouth and pulls the trigger two times.
Later, as he walks back to the entrance, he goes up to the guy who’s been watching the poorly parked Mercedes. An illegal alien. He hands him a twenty-euro bill.
“See, it didn’t take long.”
An officer in uniform informs Lhostis when he arrives at the Saint-Denis precinct the next day.
“Lieutenant, Diamantis got whacked.”
Lhostis freezes. So do the fatty acids.
“Shit, how?”
“Three stabs in the stomach and two bullets in the mouth. He’s getting butchered at the Institute right now.”
“Who found him?”
“A storekeeper from the Forum des Halles who was going to get his Clio. He was lying on the floor in the second underground level. The door of his car was still open.”
“I smell a contract.”
“Yeah, I agree. We’re all with you to find the son of a bitch who did it.”
“Okay, okay. I’m going over to the Institute, fast.”
Lhostis is playing back the bad movie as he drives. Vania. Noémie. The botched killings. And now this. He’s not too keen on playing the avenger. Nico, that stupid jerk. Well. Still.
Fifteen minutes later, in front of the dead meat in the morgue, he finally makes up his mind, pulls his cell out, and types in Noémie Diamantis’s phone number.
At the Poissy clinic, Keller watches over the young prostitute. The upper part of her body has disappeared under layers of gauze. Magic pipes link Vania to a complicated set of digital machinery. A doctor in a white smock reminiscent of George Clooney enters the room. Spots Keller.
“Did you notify the police?”
“No. She’s a prostitute.”
“I know some honest cops.”
“I don’t. Can I sleep in this room tonight?”
“Ask the nurse. I don’t know if she told you but this young woman will have to have reconstructive surgery on her face. Nothing is certain as far as the results...”
“I’ll tell her.”
“All right. I’ll be back in five hours.”
When Lhostis walks into the Diamantis home in Neuilly, the family is in mourning. Noémie dressed in a black Chanel suit. The kids in gray with white low socks. Noémie, furious.
“Spare me the condolences. He was cheating on me with a whore. In addition to whatever else he was hiding from me, stuff you know very well, it so happens.”
“He was the father of your children.”
“Thanks for the information. That’s why Nico has to be avenged.”
“Cops can’t avenge anyone.”
“Ten thousand euros might help you think about it.”
Lhostis in the clouds. He’s been wanting to buy a motorboat to coast around off Marseilles for a long time now. At the moment, he’s picking the color.
“Back to earth, Lhostis?”
“Five thousand now, five thousand when I deliver the man who did it.”
“The woman.”
“She couldn’t possibly have killed him. She was very badly messed up. The chauffeur maybe.”
“She’s pulling the strings. Just get your ass out there and find her.”
“I’ve checked all the hospitals in Île de France. I’m left with the clinics. It won’t be long.”
Noémie, bent over a small Regency desk, writes a check and holds it out to Lhostis. The man and the woman stare at each other.
“How will you make it now with the kids and all?”
“My parents have money. It’s not really a problem. Actually, yes, it is a problem since Nico always wanted to make money by himself. Which explains that prostitute. Destroy her.”
Keller is in Vania’s room, kneeling at her bedside. He presses the young woman’s hand, and for the first time she’s responsive.
She opens a swollen eye. Closes it again.
Keller, lost in a pagan prayer.
A storm is beating its knives against the windows.
Lhostis’s computer has coughed up sixty-five private clinics.
Three cops in uniform helped out. Then, at 8:30 p.m., the news comes in: There is an unidentified young black woman at the intensive care unit at the Myosotis clinic in Poissy. Lhostis sends the cops home so as not to miss the France-Georgia game in the early rounds of the World Cup.