Dominique Manotti - Lorraine Connection

A farewell wave and the door slams.

Think, fast. A brandy. Tomaso, the right man for the job? Quignard thinks back to their first meeting. A business contact had taken him to the Oiseau Bleu in Nancy. A very special place, he’d been told. A restaurant, the best in Nancy. The boss, Tomaso, had come to greet him. Behind the tall elegant form Quignard had sensed a relentless hardness, a blue-tinged steeliness that had immediately appealed to him. After the succulent dinner, they went downstairs to the nightclub in the basement of the restaurant, known for its whores, the best Nancy had to offer. He had become a regular at the Oiseau Bleu where he spent a lot more time than he did at home, and a friend of Tomaso’s, who’d opened up to him a little. He was an old warhorse in the process of adjusting to civilian life, still bearing the scars of the battles and injuries that Quignard had dreamed of as a youth during his brief stint in the OAS, fighting underground in the doomed bid to maintain French rule in Algeria. Nostalgia, nostalgia. Besides Tomaso was forty. He could almost be his son, the son he’d never had. So Quignard had ensured that his security firm was awarded certain contracts, including that of Daewoo Pondange, and was very glad he had. Whether dirty tricks against troublesome trade-unionists, the transfer of suitcases full of cash, a spot of financial espionage — Tomaso had never turned down an assignment. On the contrary, he operated with the utmost efficiency and discretion. Of course he was the right man for the job of starting a dustbin fire in a factory under occupation.

Around twenty workers have gathered in the doorway, trying to see inside. Amrouche’s voice can be heard opening the meeting in solemn tones.

While Nourredine sits there dazed, his head in his hands, finding it hard to breathe, the rest of them disperse among the offices, taking possession of the premises with obvious pleasure. The fitted carpets, walls, clean, furniture, tidy, soft pastel colours, a well-ventilated space, reveals another world to that inside the factory. They want to play around, sit in the swivel chairs, put their feet on the desks, use the metal filing cabinets as instruments for a novel kind of drum kit, set all the internal phone lines ringing. They’re at home, or rather, they’re acting as though they’re at home. Then, tired of messing around, they come across a bottle of whisky in a drawer, which they serve in coffee cups. They telephone friends overseas, and a few trifles — electronic diaries, mobile phones, coloured felt-tip pens, souvenirs for the kids, a Montblanc fountain pen — vanish into anonymous pockets. Two men help themselves to a state-of-the-art computer and all its gadgets through a window overlooking the factory floor.

In the boardroom, the discussion is drawn out in endless preliminaries, as the interpreter translates each intervention into Korean or French. Amrouche goes through a list of grievances that have accumulated since the factory opened. The group of spectators in the doorway slowly dwindles. The afternoon drags on and people are beginning to get bored. The security guards patrol the main corridor, to general indifference. A group is sitting in a circle in the Head of HR’s office, passing spliffs around. Pity the secretaries have already gone home, they’d have made the evening more fun. ‘What about our women, where are they?’ ‘They’ve chickened out, I bet you.’ Sniggers, male camaraderie. Around the coffee machine, others have resumed their perpetual card games. There’s a TV in the boss’s office. It proves impossible to find the remote and the TV set is thrown on the floor. Nourredine has fallen asleep in his chair, his head on his knees.

Étienne has brought back the computer seized from the Korean executive’s car. He finds a quiet office and plugs it in. He knows a thing or two about computers, he does. Here’s his chance to see what they get up to in the offices. It amuses and interests him. He opens up the computer, no problem, and starts tapping away. In the folder labelled ‘management purchases-sales suppliers’ there are several files, identified by numbers. He opens one at random, and discovers lists of names: French names, foreign names, all unknown. He clicks on one of them. In an inset on the left of the screen, a close-up of a woman giving a man a blow job, repetitive, forceful, animated graphics. Étienne clicks on another file, another graphic, blow job again, but different angle and position. He flicks gleefully through folders and files, jumping from masturbation to sodomy, threesomes and other variations. Étienne’s jubilant: those bureaucrats, got to hand it to them, they’re well organised. The image of Aisha lying on the floor in the dark comes back to him, he smells the fragrance of shampoo in her mass of black hair, and then the overpowering smell of blood. A virgin, a special feeling, a good feeling. Massive hard-on. He jumps. Karim is leaning over his shoulder with the easy familiarity between a supplier and one of his regular customers, and slips a ready-rolled joint into the pocket of his overalls.

‘Little present for you. I’m shutting up shop and going home.’

His gaze lights on the screen. The image shows a woman on all fours being mounted by a dog — a white Great Dane with black patches, and he’s panting, tongue hanging out. It takes Étienne’s breath away. You don’t often see that around here in Pondange.

There’s a pause in negotiations. The managers have asked to be allowed to consult each other and Amrouche and Hafed have left them alone in the boardroom. During the break in discussions they do the rounds of the offices and take stock of the occupation. Amrouche enters the room where Étienne and Karim are chortling and thumping each other, glued to the computer, shoulder to shoulder. In one corner of the screen, a man is fucking a woman doggie-style, medium-close shot of their arses moving. Amrouche, deeply shocked, mutters a few exorcisms and goes out, slamming the door behind him. The noise makes Karim jump. He emerges from his reverie and his business instincts kick in.

‘Can you make me a quick copy of the images? You’re good at mucking around with these machines, then you enlarge them, we make a nice little diskette that I can sell for a good price. I’ve got the customers, and we go fifty-fifty.’

‘Brilliant. Wait, it won’t take a minute.’

Étienne rummages in the cupboards, finds some diskettes, inserts one, starts copying. The operation takes three minutes, the time it takes to light the joint and have a few tokes with Karim who pockets the diskette and vanishes in the direction of the cafeteria.

Étienne carries on smoking and daydreaming. How much would he make on the deal? A thousand francs? More? He looks back at the screen. The images have disappeared and his gaze is drawn to the name of a file he recognises. Nourredine Hamidi. Nourredine, my friend in packaging? Beneath the name is a sort of bank statement, a series of dates scrolls past, figures listed as debits, credits, and at the bottom of the list, the total assets: a hundred thousand francs. He toggles from file to file, suddenly paying close attention. Other names appear, also with bank statements, mostly unknown, but here’s one with the name of holier-than-thou Amrouche. Not bad, a hundred and fifty thousand francs. And a little further down, Rolande Lepetit, fifty thousand francs only, poor old Rolande, always unlucky. And Maréchal, another two hundred thousand francs. Seniority has been taken into account. Initial reaction: They’ve got a stake in the company, they’ve done better than me, even Rolande with her prissy air. Second reaction: Hold on a minute, if Nourredine’s got a packet in Daewoo, why’s he going on about bonuses? He doesn’t give a shit about bonuses. Who’s side is he on? And Rolande, made redundant? I’d be surprised. Have to get to the bottom of this.