Salim Bachi - Paris Noir

the well-endowed blond waitress, who has no more face but is still standing with a bottle of Châteldon mineral water in her hand;

the other couple who were having lunch at Chez Michel, quite dead, their shredded heads on their plates of grouse with foie gras, still tempting despite two manicured feminine fingers, cleanly cut off, lying on the meat; a cat right next to his face,

a cat meowing as if to express its displeasure, but a cat that Berthet can’t hear.

Berthet is thinking two things:

first, cats are not democrats, which must be a vague, Baudelairean reminiscence;

second, I’m deaf because of the explosion. Probably a defensive grenade. They’re going to come back to finish the job. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Berthet gets up. Berthet stinks of langoustines and cèpes.

Berthet is annoyed. Berthet has a romantic notion of the last-ditch stand. And it does not fit the image of a man in a ripped Armani suit that smells of langoustine.

Hélène Bastogne, what do you know?

A car somewhere blares its antitheft alarm.

Counselor Morland’s topped-off head is dripping into the Dilettante from Cathy and Pierre Breton.

Barbarians. Bunch of barbarians. To do that to a practically unadulterated wine.

A motorbike makes a half-turn at the end of rue de Belzunce. Two guys in helmets. Petty subcontractors. The Unit subcontracts now, like any other big firm in the private sector. It’s pitiful. The driver of the bike leans against the buttress of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul church before skidding to a halt.

The passenger pulls the pin out of a second grenade.

Fucking subcontractors, I’m telling you.

Professionals would have stepped right into Chez Michel, come up to Berthet and Counselor Morland’s table, shot them simultaneously through the back of the head with low-caliber weapons, like the Tanfoglio .22 against Berthet’s ankle.

Farting noises. By the time everybody has reacted and understood that the strike wasn’t really a stroke, they’re far away.

Come on! Stupid temps. Even The Unit has accountants now. Even The Unit is into budget cuts. Part-time work in the intelligence services. Assholes. Berthet knows that he’s living in a system in which, even on the day the world ends, there will be guys complaining about deficits.

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 fizzing 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.

Unlike Berthet, Hélène Bastogne loves the 10th arrondissement. 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 Bastogne 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. Hélène 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;