Salim Bachi - Paris Noir

It was probably because of that, because of an old, unresolved guilt, that I had agreed to do something for Ilona at the end of the meal.

“So really, she asked you to go to her place alone, and you said yes without hesitating, without asking for an explanation?”

“Of course I did!”

“And so?”

“I can’t remember what she told me anymore, I... I’m tired.”

“With all the junk you took?” Ralph didn’t want to be forgotten.

I couldn’t reply. No point trying to justify the coke, I’d taken it willingly, like an idiot. They’d made me swallow the rest by force. But my three interrogators didn’t seem ready to believe me.

“So you agreed, and...?”

“And I went out of the Charbon...” Into the Saturday-night zoo, a little nervous and not very uplifted by the local crowd. I’d known the Oberkampf neighborhood a few years earlier when it was trendier, sleeker, newly revitalized. Now it was like anyplace else again, with even more bars and restaurants.

The building where Ilona and her housemate had their apartment was located in a private, gated alley not far from the restaurant. What used to be called a cité (housing block) in the 11th, a kind of narrow alley where artisans had their workshops before. These had disappeared a long time ago, replaced by very expensive, slightly bohemian apartments for models, photographers, and artists of all kinds. Or by public housing. Social diversity in the making.

“There wasn’t much light in the courtyard and no one in sight.” I stood a moment outside, listening to the sounds of a party several floors up and watching people in the street on the other side of the gate. “I climbed up to the third floor, I found the entrance Ilona had mentioned on the landing, and I was going to knock when I heard the cry.” I had never been confronted with such suffering. A terrible scream, interrupted by deep gurgles and sobs. “It was a girl, I think. I thought it must be Ilona’s housemate, and I almost tried to enter, but...”

“But?” Sydney leaned toward me.

“Two men began talking to each other inside, in Russian. There were heavy punches, more moaning from someone in pain. Even through the... I... I could practically feel the punches.”

“The address! Quick!”

I gave it to Ralph from memory, this time turning around. Impossible to forget it after what I’d heard behind that door. Ralph went to make phone calls in the next room.

“What did you do afterward?”

“I left.”

Yves shook his head behind his computer screen.

“I... I wanted to tell Ilona, ask her for her key, warn someone, get people...” I tried to explain but it was useless. “And what would you have done in my place? I had no weapon, I don’t know how to fight.” I lowered my head. “I got scared.”

The office was silent for a few seconds. They let me stew in my shame. I felt their mocking eyes on me.

“You left, and then?” Sydney, the humiliation had lasted long enough.

“I was going back down when I met the guy I’d seen in front of the Pop’in. He was carrying a McDonald’s bag. We were both surprised but he didn’t recognize me, at least not right away. He just checked me out from head to toe as I casually passed him, trying to stay calm. I was already running along the alley when I heard shouting in the stairway. Names, I think, at least one: Victor .”

“His sidekicks in the apartment?”

“I didn’t try to find out. I rushed to find Ilona at the Charbon. She understood there was a problem as soon as she saw me come in.”

“Not stupid, that babe. Then?”

“Then she refused to follow me outside.”

“Why?”

“Instinct, I guess. The threat was behind me. She dragged me into the bathroom, and from there we stepped into the nightclub next door, the Nouveau Casino.” Barely through the door, she’d done something that puzzled me. She’d gone to the cloakroom and checked her purse. But not her helmet. Then she gave me the ticket she’d gotten from the girl in charge. I didn’t tell them this, though.

“What did you do once you got inside?”

“She led me toward the bar at the back. We lost ourselves in the crowd and we waited. She refused to listen to me. I could see she was scared stiff, and this began to make me panic too. I wanted to call someone.”

“Who?”

“You, the police. Who else?”

“Why didn’t you?”

Behind me, other cops were filing into the second office. Ralph started to talk to them, and I understood that these were the guys who had stayed at Marc’s while we’d gone to the hospital. They exchanged information in low voices.

Sydney returned to the job at hand. “Why didn’t you call us, Monsieur Henrion?”

“She stopped me. She didn’t want me to go out to make a call, and my cell wasn’t working inside. Plus, I couldn’t hear above the music.”

“A little too easy.”

“For you, maybe. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have had time.”

“Why not?”

“The thug from the stairway showed up in the club with another guy, same type only older. Ilona saw them first, me just after. They were quick to spot us and elbowed through the crowd to catch up with us.”

“That’s where they cornered you?”

“No.” I closed my eyes and rubbed a hand over my face to ward off the memories. Suddenly I snickered.

“What?”

“There was a concert later that evening at the Nouveau Casino, and they were spinning the British band Franz Ferdinand to keep people from getting impatient. ‘Auf Achse,’ you know it?”

Sydney shook his head.

“Okay, forget it. There were three black guys sitting next to us at the bar. They’d been checking out Ilona since we’d arrived, so she went to ask them for a smoke. The two Russians turned up, and the first grabbed her by the wrist to yank her around. She slapped him.”

After that, everything went very fast. The thug had wanted to slap her back, but one of the black guys gave him a violent shove. They all started fighting, and Ilona and I slipped out, taking advantage of the confusion.

Outside, there was a black Mercedes waiting with a third man. Fortunately, it was parked on the other side of the street, pointing in the wrong direction. He’d seen us, but by the time he reacted and got out of his car, we were already far away, hurtling down Oberkampf in the middle of the Saturday-night partygoers. I remembered that Ilona had taken off her Jimmy Choos to run and we had gone through side streets, then down toward the Cirque d’Hiver to get the scooter. A mistake. In the meantime, the Russians had regrouped and, without a hitch, seeing the direction we’d taken, had made a quick return to the Pop’in.

The Mercedes had shot up rue Amelot just as Ilona was starting her scooter. Without missing a beat, she’d jumped it up on the sidewalk to try to shake off the car.

“Then I got really scared. I had no helmet and we were taking lots of small one-way streets in the wrong direction. We almost hit several people.” I shook my head. “I think we broke the speed record for crossing the 11th. but we couldn’t shake them, and they were going to catch us any minute. At some point, on one of the boulevards, I can’t remember which...” I stopped in the middle of my story to search my memory, in vain. “Well, I can certainly find it on a map. Anyhow, I saw a public works van parked near one of those huge metro air vents planted in the sidewalks. It was wide open, with several cables and pipes running from it into the ground.”

Then I told Ilona to go around the block the wrong way. This time we got lucky, a car heading toward us from the other end of the street forced the Russians to slow down. We went back to the van and I told her to get off the scooter. I dumped it into the vent opening, and we jumped right after it onto a large conduit. The scooter was wrecked, but we were invisible. No one saw our maneuver, not even the poor guy doing the maintenance on the vent. He only saw us climb back up thirty minutes later, a little dirty, once we were sure the coast was clear.