Fred Vargas - An Uncertain Place

‘I’ll make some coffee,’ Adamsberg said.

‘Don’t play the fool, mister,’ said the young man, drawing on his cigarette and putting one hand on the gun. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know who I am.’

‘Of course I know. You’re the Zerquetscher .’

‘The what?’

‘The Crusher, the most vicious killer of the new century.’

The man smiled, satisfied.

‘I would like some coffee,’ Adamsberg said. ‘You can shoot me first or after, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got the guns, you’re blocking the way out.’

‘Huh,’ said the man, ‘you make me laugh.’ He moved the revolver nearer the edge of the table.

Adamsberg put a filter paper in the funnel with three heaped tablespoons of coffee. He measured two bowlfuls of water and poured them into a saucepan. Better to be doing something than nothing.

‘You don’t have a proper coffee-maker?’

‘Tastes better this way. You haven’t had any breakfast? As you like,’ said Adamsberg into the silence, ‘but I’m going to eat something.’

‘You’ll eat if I say so.’

‘If I don’t eat anything, I won’t understand what you’re saying. I imagine you came here to say something.’

‘You think you’re so high and mighty,’ said the man. The smell of coffee began to fill the kitchen.

‘No, I’m just preparing my last breakfast. Does that bother you?’

‘Yeah.’

‘OK, go ahead and shoot then.’

Adamsberg put two bowls on the table with sugar, bread, butter, jam and milk. He had not the slightest desire to die from a bullet fired by this sinister character who was blocked somewhere, as Josselin might say. Or to get to know him. But talk and get them talking, that was the first rule you learned, before even learning to handle a gun. ‘Words,’ the instructor had said, ‘are the deadliest weapons if you know exactly where to aim them.’ He also said it was quite difficult to find the right place in the head to aim the words, and if you were off target the enemy tended to shoot at once.

Adamsberg poured the coffee into the two bowls, pushed some sugar and bread towards the enemy, whose eyes did not move under the black bar of his eyebrows meeting across the middle.

‘Tell me at least what you think of it,’ Adamsberg said. ‘Apparently you’re quite a cook.’

‘How would you know that?’

‘Through Monsieur Weill, your downstairs neighbour. He’s a friend of mine. He also likes you, Zerquetscher . I’ll say Zerketch if you don’t mind.’

‘I know what you’re up to, scumbag. You’re trying to make me talk, tell you the story of my life, fucking stuff like that, like the fucking over-the-hill cop you are, and then you’ll try to confuse me and kick me in the balls.’

‘Story of your life, sorry, I don’t give a damn.’

‘Huh, really?’

‘No,’ said Adamsberg sincerely, regretting the fact.

‘Well, you’re wrong,’ said the young man through clenched teeth.

‘Maybe so. But that’s the way I am. Couldn’t give a damn about anything really.’

‘Not about me?’

‘Not about you.’

‘So what does interest you, scumbag?’

‘Nothing. I must have missed out on something when I was born. See that light bulb up there?’

‘Ha, don’t try to make me look up!’

‘It hasn’t worked for months. I haven’t changed it, I just get on with things in the dark.’

‘Just what I thought about you. Useless fucking wanker.’

‘Well, a wanker does want something, doesn’t he?’

‘Yeah,’ admitted the young man after a moment.

‘But I don’t. Otherwise, yes, I agree with you.’

‘And you’re chicken, you remind me of this old geezer I know, a real bullshitter, he thinks he knows it all.’

‘Too bad.’

‘He was in this bar one night. And these six guys come at him. Know what he does?’

‘No.’

‘He lies down on the ground. Like a wimp! He says, “Go ahead, guys.” So they tell him to get up. But he just lies there, hands folded on his belly, like a fucking woman. And in the end they say, “Stuff this for a lark. OK, grandad, come and have a drink.” And you know what he says?’

‘Yes.’

‘You do?’ asked the boy.

‘Yes, he says: “What kind of drink? Not if it’s only Beaujolais.”’

‘Yeah, that’s right,’ said the young man, disconcerted.

‘So then,’ Adamsberg went on, dunking some bread in his coffee, ‘the six thugs think, hmm, cool customer, pick the old man up, and after that they’re all friends. But I wouldn’t call him chicken. I’d say it took some guts. But that was Weill – eh? I’m right, aren’t I, it was Weill?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s quick-witted. I’m not.’

‘He’s better than you? At police stuff?’

‘Are you disappointed? You want a higher-class enemy?’

‘No. They say you’re the best cop in the business.’

‘So our meeting was written in the stars.’

‘More than you think, scumbag,’ said the young man with a nasty smile, but swallowing his first mouthful of coffee.

‘Would you mind calling me something else?’

‘Yeah, I can call you pig if you want.’

Adamsberg had now finished his bread and his coffee. It was the time when he normally set off for the office, half an hour’s walk. He felt tired, sickened by this exchange, fed up with this man and with himself.

‘Seven o’clock,’ he said. ‘Now this is when my neighbour will go out and take a leak against a tree. He has to piss every hour and a half, day and night. It doesn’t do the tree much good. But I tell the time by him.’

The man gripped the gun and watched Lucio through the window.

‘Why does he have to piss so often?’

‘Prostate trouble.’

‘See if I care,’ said the young man furiously. ‘I’ve got TB, eczema, ringworm, enteritis, and I’ve only got one kidney.’

Adamsberg cleared away the bowls.

‘Ah, well, I see why you want to kill everyone then.’

‘Yeah. Another year and I’ll be dead.’

Adamsberg pointed towards the Zerquetscher ’s cigarettes.

‘Does that mean you want one?’

‘Yes.’

The packet slid across the table.

‘Yeah, condemned man gets one last smoke, traditionally. But what else do you want? You want answers, you want to understand? You won’t find anything. Ask away.’

Adamsberg took out a cigarette and gestured with his fingers for a light.

‘You’re not scared?’

‘So-so.’

Adamsberg inhaled deeply, which made his head swim.

‘Just why did you come here?’ he asked. ‘To walk into the lion’s den? To tell me your little story? To get absolution? To take a look at the enemy?’

‘Yeah,’ said the young man, though it wasn’t clear what that referred to. ‘I wanted to see what you looked like before leaving. No, it wasn’t that. I came here basically to fuck up your life.’

He was threading the holster on his shoulder, but getting entangled in the straps.

‘You’ve got it on the wrong way round. That strap there goes on the other arm.’

The young man started again. Adamsberg watched him without moving. There came a muted mewing sound and claws scratched the door.

‘What’s that?’

‘A cat.’

‘You keep pets? How pathetic, only wimps have pets. Yours?’

‘No, she belongs to the garden.’

‘You have kids?’

‘No,’ said Adamsberg prudently.

‘Easy to say no, isn’t it? Easy not to give a damn about anything? To faff about up in the sky while other people have to slog away down here?’

‘In the sky?’

‘Yeah. Known as the cloud-shoveller.’

‘You’re well informed.’