Cédric Fabre - Marseille Noir

“The guy with the scar?”

“Yes, yes. He’s a rich local merchant. Come on, we’re leaving for Moroni.”

The sun is a golden ball casting a reddish glow on the horizon. It’s one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen. A few hours ago, I almost died under the bullets of a Kalashnikov, far from the Marseille projects where I live. Bam hands me his phone and I call Chief.

“What news?” he asks.

“Everything’s fine, don’t worry, Chief. But I need some info, urgent. Take a look at the records and please find me the file of a certain Swamadou Alhadhur. Born in Marseille. Call me back at this number.”

“Okay, I’ll call you back within half an hour.”

While I’m talking, Bam’s reading a book of poems. He writes poetry. He’s published three collections already. In fact, he’s been nicknamed the poet-lieutenant. Moreover — and this is rare — an excerpt from one of his poems is printed on a Comorian bank note. The phone rings.

“Yes, Chief, I’m listening.”

“Here you go. I’ve got your little hood in the files. He has a record, mostly because of an armed robbery at Hard Discount. We haven’t heard from him since the last time he got out, a few months ago.”

“Okay. No risk of hearing about him anymore. I wasted him.”

“So things are heating up over there. Be careful, and come home in one piece.”

“Don’t worry, Chief.” I hang up.

“You don’t just supply us with Marseille sardines. Shark too, I see,” Bam says to me. “The guy with the scar has a big warehouse downtown where he organizes goods for his different stores. How about going there and having a little look around?”

“I like your style. Let’s go,” I say, standing up.

Moroni, the capital of the Comoros, is plunged in deafening nocturnal silence. We drive up to a big shed guarded by two uniformed men.

“Are they soldiers?” I ask.

“No, security guards. Listen, go talk to them. You speak good Comorian so that won’t be a problem. Meanwhile, I’ll walk around the building and go into the yard through the back.”

“Okay, boss,” I say, chuckling.

We park the car at a good distance and get out. While we’re walking toward the shed, a pickup truck with a dozen soldiers stops alongside us. Their chief recognizes Bam and they salute each other. The soldier is talkative and Bam doesn’t dare send him packing. I feign an urgent need to urinate and excuse myself. I go around the shed, climb over the wall, and land in a poorly lit yard. I manage to get into the shed, which is full of bags of rice, cement, sugar — boxes and boxes of goods. Fifty-odd wooden crates in one corner attract my attention. I open one and there, before my eyes, are hundreds and hundreds of brand-new Kalashnikovs. I hear a noise and slip behind a pile of cardboard boxes stamped Savon de Marseille.

“Lieutenant, lieutenant!” a voice is whispering.

It’s Bam, and he’s staring wide-eyed at the crates. We close everything back up and leave.

“It’s late. I’ll drop you off at the hotel,” Bam says.

A beautiful moon is illuminating the city. This archipelago really deserves its name: Juzur al-Qamar, the islands of the moon.

At dawn, the phone in my hotel room rings. It’s Lieutenant Bam.

“You have to get up, brother, it’s urgent!”

I take a quick shower, get dressed, and go downstairs. Bam is having coffee.

“Yesterday, after I left you here, I tracked down the scarred guy on the coast road. So I went to his place. I found a bunch of things. I’ve got two pieces of news for you, one good and one bad. The bad one is, you won’t have time to go to Milevani to visit your mother — you’re taking a flight back to Marseille in two hours. The guy with the scar will be on board and you have to keep an eye on him over there. I have lots of evidence connecting him to the death of the president of the high council of the republic so his fish-scaler friend can take power.”

“So the president’s heart attack was an attack after all, but it wasn’t his heart that did it. And what’s the good news?”

“You’ll find out when you get on the plane,” Bam says.

“Okay, I’ll go pack. You’re sure things’ll be all right here?”

“Yes, don’t worry, I’ve got the situation under control. ”

At the airport, Bam gives me a signed book of his poems. Then he holds out a big envelope and says: “Open it on the plane, the good news is inside.”

We say goodbye and promise to meet again. Each of us tells the other to dodge the bullets and do what it takes to stay alive. I’m in economy class, the guy with the scar’s in first class. The plane takes off. The islands of the Comoros get farther and farther away. I’ll be back. I open the envelope and.

Marseille. I trail the guy with the scar who doesn’t appear to suspect a thing. Night covers the city. Sitting in my car parked on rue de Lyon, I see the guy quickly pull up to the curb and park his red Clio. He gets out and goes into number 6. I follow him, walking very softly. He goes up to the fourth floor and enters an apartment. I hear him talking with another man.

“You’re a loser. I asked you to come to the Comoros with real men and all you can do is send me some asshole who can’t even use a Kalash!”

“Lower your voice, will you? You know who you’re talking to?”

“Of course. Your father may be the interim president, but you seem to be forgetting that he is where he is because of me. So if you want him to croak like all the others, and you with them, just keep talking to me like that. I lift my little finger and you go straight to hell.”

The guy with the scar doesn’t kid around. I kick the door in with my gun in my hand. The interim president’s son pulls out his weapon but my Sig Sauer SP2022 is watching him with its cyclops eye, ready to spit fire like the Ngazidja volcano.

“Hi, guys, I came to have a cup of coffee or maybe eat some mayele, whichever you like,” I say.

The guy with the scar crosses his arms and puts on a funny smile. He glances at his associate, who fires. I duck quickly and empty my chamber into his stomach. He doesn’t seem to appreciate this five-bullet meal and collapses into a pool of blood. The scarred guy panics, tries to run out of the apartment, but I jump on him, tackle him to the floor, and cuff him. I make him sit down on a chair and plant myself in front of him.

“Welcome to Marseille, you son of a bitch. You wanted to knock me off back in the old country, but now the game’s here at home. Let’s have a little chat.”

I open the envelope and take out papers, photos, and a French passport.

“Let’s not waste time, because when you come down to it, things aren’t so complicated: to enable Madjid Ben Mawlana to take power without a coup d’état, you had the president killed. But there’s a problem: your boy wasn’t the president of the high council so he couldn’t take over. No big deal, you cut the brake lines in M’hadjou Ben M’sa’s car. And according to the constitution, the position goes directly to your pal. I must say, your Marseille fish scaler was pretty clever. They thought he was a fool when he refused to become a minister and asked to be appointed to the high council. A good move, I must admit. I’ve got it right so far?”

“Yeah, and so what?” sighs the scarred guy.

“So what? I have photos here of you with a certain Radhia, and her passport was found in your house in Moroni. It’s covered with a lot of visas. Radhia sure got around. And knowing her, I don’t think she was traveling as a tourist. She belonged to your network and you’re going to tell me why you had to get rid of her.”