J. Janes - Mannequin

Peguy swallowed. Two rucksacks. They … they left the suitcases but these were then taken by someone else and we have not yet been able to find them.’

‘Did they leave a little of the cash as hush-up money? Well …?’

‘Yes, yes, most probably. Maybe a bundle of 500s. We do not know as yet!’

‘Didn’t the chauffeur get a look at them?’

‘One wrenched the rear-view mirror aside, the other put the gun to the back of his head. Things moved too fast. He was hit pretty hard and has suffered a concussion.’

‘So, tell me about the two men.’

‘They … they were dressed as mackerels but …’

‘Dressed like pimps so as to point the finger elsewhere? Good Gott im Himmel, how dumb do you think I am?’

‘As maquereaux! ’ spat Peguy desperately.

‘Hey, mon fin, pimps don’t have the guts to rob banks, nor would they smash a teller’s face with lead. Come to think of it, why that teller?’

‘He … he reached for the …’

‘Ja, ja, the alarm bell. Hey, look behind the shit to find the ass that left it. Why that teller?’

His nose was broken, raged Peguy silently. His teeth were smashed. ‘He … he may have recognized one of them.’

‘ Or ?’

There was a sigh, that of a departing soul perhaps.

‘Or known of the shipment and … and foolishly passed the word so as to obtain the pay-off.’ Marseille … could he manage to go into hiding there?

Again Kohler leaned down. ‘Don’t even think of Marseille, mein Schatz, my treasure. You’d stand out like rotten fish. Hey, you’re really very good. If you had udders, you’d make a farmer happy. But let’s hope your milk hasn’t turned, eh? Because if it has, I’ll be back. Oh by the way, those two guys. How old were they?’

He’d kill Kohler if he could! ‘Thirty … thirty-two to thirty-six, no more, not much younger.’

Things must have happened pretty fast. ‘And they didn’t talk or act like pimps, did they? Well, come on. Empty the udders so that I can put you out to pasture.’

The head was shaken. A hair was savagely spat. ‘Well-educated, eh?’ asked the Gestapo.

The head gave a nod. ‘So, good. Yes, that’s very good,’ said Kohler, straightening to stand over him. There was only one language a bastard like this would understand. ‘Don’t move. I’ve got to put the pistol away and take out the other one.’

Giving it a moment in which Peguy cringed and waited himself, he said, ‘The woman. The one who watched the street. Let’s not forget her.’

‘She … she lost herself quickly.’

‘Just walked away? No bicycle? No motor cycle or velo-taxi? ’

‘None.’

‘How old?’

‘Thirty to thirty-five, maybe a little older.’

‘Okay. Was it a Resistance job?’

‘We … we don’t know. Perhaps not. It … it’s too early to say.’

‘So you told Talbotte no.’

The head leapt, the bastard tried to face him.

‘Yes, yes, I told him no! Do you think I want trouble with those people? If they find out I’ve squealed on them, they will slice me up.’

It had best come softly. ‘Maybe that’s what you deserve.’

Peguy raked his mind for details. Giselle le Roy liked to dance in the Bal Saint-Severin and to while away her time watching old movies in any of three most favoured cinemas. Sometimes she would go around the corner to pay Madame Chabot a little visit and to talk over old times. Since she could no longer offer the use of her body to anyone but Kohler, the girl was bored.

In boredom would there be vengeance. The sword with the serpent entwined.

‘Thinking about tattoos and vowing you’re going to kill someone close to me, eh?’ snorted Kohler. ‘Hey, I’d watch it if I were you. Ah merde, the battery’s dry. You’re in luck!’

No piss.

For good measure, he leaned on Peguy’s head and ground it into the trough a last time. ‘Don’t even think of touching Giselle or Oona. I’ll kill you if you come within a block of either of them. If your friends out there allow you to leave. If. Bonne chance, you’re going to need it!’

The battered lips quivered with rage, the bloodshot eyes were smarting. ‘I … I will have the protection of the prefet and they will know it.’

‘Then I pity you for its worthlessness. Au revoir, mon fin. Sleep lightly.’

The Cluny was at 71 boulevard Saint-Germain, not all that easy to find in the darkness. Kohler stood in the middle of the street. Hell, there was so little traffic, a drunk could have slept out here.

From time to time the squeaking wheels of a frost-pinched velo-taxi would struggle by, but for the most part the night left him alone. His right arm was stiff-nothing more than a flesh wound, but close. They had patched him up at the Hopital Laennec and had asked why he hadn’t gone to one of his own clinics.

He had simply said the hospital was nearer and had warned them to say nothing. But the confrontation in the Bar of the Broken Cat was troubling him and not just because one of his confreres had given him a bad tip and some in Gestapo Paris would like to be rid of him, but because this war had to end and when it did, those who were left behind were going to have to pay for it, rightly or wrongly.

Only too well he knew the French passion for ‘justice’. ‘Giselle,’ he said, searching the dark outline of the cinema’s billboards where once, in good times, the lights would have been lit up until three or four in the morning. ‘I’m going to have to do something. Oona’s in it too.’

Sentiment rushed in on him. He liked and admired them both, often for quite different reasons. They made him feel at ease with himself when all around him he could see so clearly what was going on. They never once openly questioned their relationship though deep within themselves they must be asking what was going to happen to them when the Germans went home.

Sure as hell life would be made damned miserable for all who had fraternized with the enemy. And Louis? he asked.

The Resistance would go for Louis, disregarding entirely that he had had to work for the Occupier or else. False papers, new IDs … travel permits? wondered Kohler. Spain, maybe Portugal? Somewhere warm and near the sea. Then maybe after the rubble and the hatred had cleared, a small bar, a quiet little shop, nothing fancy, only peace.

A farm for Louis, since even a recent case in Provence had failed to make him shut up about going back to work a land he had never farmed like some, his partner namely, except as a boy on holiday.

Flinging his cigarette down in disgust at himself, Kohler said, ‘Use your brains, idiot, not your balls! Let them go while they still have a chance. Set it up for them and say goodbye.’

Giselle was sitting in the middle of the cinema, about three-quarters of the way towards the back because her eyes couldn’t take anything closer. Shoulders that were so lovely when naked were hunched. No heat in the damned place, of course. Half-hidden by the cheap fur collar of a thin overcoat, she stared raptly at the screen, was completely oblivious to all the others around her who smoked, necked, fucked, slept or did other things. Ah yes.

She was totally lost to a film she must have seen twenty times since its release in 1937. Another ancient rerun the war and the censors had allowed, the latter because, asses that they were, they had thought it reflected unfavourably on the French!

Pepe le Moko. The story of a little thief who was wanted by the flics and had taken refuge in an Algerian kasbah. Christ! the wonder of celluloid. A kasbah no less, and no knife in the guts from another thief!