Gerald Seymour - Battle Sight Zero

Close to a toilet door. Beyond a Bella Italia and close to a Pound Store, two of them. Weapons across their chests, their belts sagging under the burden of handcuffs and gas canisters and ammunition, their trousers floppy and creased, and neither was shaved, and… they carried all the paraphernalia of their trade. They might have eyed the guys who walked with her, run the rule over them and lost interest, and both saw her. She would not back off, look demure and shy: she stared back at them, and straightened her back and pushed out her chest, and was rewarded: one smiled at her, the other grinned, and when they moved on down the corridor she was certain they’d have chuckled. ‘Right little fucking goer’ and ‘Bloody come-on eyes, gagging for it’.

She turned to the guys, said she’d seen enough. Could picture how it would be amongst the blood pools and the glass shards and the sliding chaos of the flight, and the islands of those on the floor who could not move. Zeinab did not need to see any more. She left them, a flick of her wrist to indicate they should stay. She felt control, authority. They should stay where they were and wait for her. She knew what she would buy, looked for the display, found what she wanted: like silk, and the right size. Paid, left, rejoined them… Needed to see nothing more.

It was about a rifle. One rifle. To start with.

‘You will do the close support, I watch. You will be rewarded.’

An old man had done the equivalent in his world of snapping his fingers for attention, and the younger man, like an obedient dog, had come running.

‘You take care of it, the transfer. Small business I accept, but it will grow.’

In the world that Tooth occupied, his instructions were rarely ignored, and any idiot who did not accept what was ‘requested’ of him, would suffer. The reputation of Tooth still counted in Marseille and its environs. The years when he was a familiar figure seated in the cafés on the narrow side-streets off La Canebière, always facing the door, were long gone. Most of his time was now spent in the quality suburbs to the south of the city, at the villa he had built – still regarded as extraordinary that building permission had been granted for construction on that headland – looking out across the Mediterranean and towards craggy islands. He was the last of the Corsican era, as criminologists liked to call it, the big men who had run the drugs scene, and the girls, before the Arabs – savages from north Africa – had elbowed them aside, trampled on them.

‘If it is satisfactory, this route and these people, then much will follow. You have my word: my word is the best currency.’

If he looked at himself in the mirror, the large one with the gilt frame in the hallway of the villa – which he never did – he would not have easily understood how it was that a small man, thick bearded but tidy, usually wearing a tartan cap on his greying hair, could create both fear and obedience. But, had he paused before the mirror and examined himself, he’d have been denied the sight of his eyes. Always he wore dark glasses. When he came out of the bathroom in the morning, they went on along with his socks and underpants, and only when he changed into his pyjamas did they come off. His eyes were pale blue, a lighter colour than the sea, and cold, cold as if frozen. The reputation that had lasted into his old age was fearsome, the reason why the younger man had come from the north of Marseille when told to. His name came from the Bible – Exodus 21–24 – an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and could have been a ‘hand’ or a ‘foot’ or a ‘burn’ or a ‘wound’, but Tooth was the name that had stayed with him. Anyone who crossed him risked serious reprisal: many teeth had been extracted, without a whiff of anaesthetic, because of stupidity, refusal to acknowledge the obvious. He had been told of this young man by a policeman who he paid well, had gone to visit La Castellane to seek him out. Tooth had walked past the kids who had challenged him, seemed about to threaten an elderly guy, lining up to jostle and challenge an intruder. He had told them to ‘go fuck your mothers’ had not backed off – never had. The kids had: would have recognised authority. He had not been armed, never carried a weapon, but he was known, and his reputation was alive. Having failed to find the man he wanted he had left the instruction to summon him, then had walked back through the kids and seen that they stayed warily clear of him. Most of those who had gone in the generation before him, the big men of Marseille, were dead – the Belgian, the Roaster, the Big Blond – shot in cafés while enjoying strong coffee, doing deals. He survived because he was discreet.

‘It is one weapon. What do you have yourself, of the Kalashnikov, five or six, seven? This is one. We look for a new route. If successful we have the contract to bring many. Not from Serbia, or overland from Spain, but by sea. I believe it an opportunity.’

His best investment had been the filtering of cash into the serious crime squad working from L’Évêché, close to the cathedral, the name all Marseille gave to the headquarters offices of the police. With his back well covered he had been regarded as the Emperor of the 3rd District, his authority total either side of the autoroute from the St Charles railway terminus and almost to the airport. He was an institution in the city, could command tables in any restaurant or at the better hotels.

‘Your name was given me. I’d not want trust abused.’

The meeting was in a park off the wide and busy Boulevard Charles Livon. Lawns were enhanced with well-tended beds, and the shrubs would soon be sprouting after the winter pruning. The view across the harbour, down on to the Fort Saint-Jean, was superb, and on this clear and sunny day, with a scouring clean wind, Tooth could see beyond the ferry terminal and container docks as far as the indistinct and hazed image – white buildings crushed close together – of the La Castellane project. They were sitting on a bench and behind them was a statue dedicated to local seamen lost in the Mediterranean. It had a realism in the work that might have created anxiety for any who might be about to sail in gale force conditions: he had no fear, and the work was meaningless to him. He had let the young man park his motorbike, go toward the bench, had checked he was alone, then had joined him. Nothing was challenged, everything was agreed.

‘You will put the people in place, do what is necessary. Understand also that if your work is satisfactory you will find you are given access to those in significant positions who can advance you. I think that is very clear. I ask you one question, just one.’

A smile might have slipped across his face. Difficult to ascertain because of the thickness of his beard. ‘My question – how do you respond to a man or a boy who cheats on you, who breaks the trust you have shown?’

He was answered. Nodded, seemed satisfied, said how and when the next contact would be made. The younger man was dismissed and started to walk away across the grass, skirting the mothers and nannies who had brought the children out after school and nursery… and he was pleased.

The life of a person with the status of Tooth was based on friendships: very few but of a lasting quality. He would be with Crab… At home he lived with his long-term mistress, Marie. They had been in a restaurant, Nice, on the Promenade des Anglais, and beside the Plage Beau Rivage. She had played the bitch, complained, irritated, raised her voice. Another couple, same age, were at an adjacent table. Marie had acted out a scene, would not have done anything like it at the villa or would have found herself out on the step with her clothes in a heap at her feet. It was about a bracelet in a jeweller’s window that he had not bought her. She had made theatrically for the door. The guy from the other couple, a frown knitted in sympathy but grinning widely, had voiced his opinion, in regional English but Tooth had understood. ‘Can’t live with them, can’t live without them’. He had scowled, then smiled, then let himself go and his laughter had pealed through the restaurant, and he had joined them. The start… him and Crab. Together, Tooth and Crab. After half an hour, Marie had come back. He had not welcomed, nor acknowledged her; he had made a new friend. Tooth had a strong nose. He recognised Crab’s trade. They would hug, do business, laugh and drink. Make a good profit. They would eat well and talk of old times. They would feel blessed that they, old men, could still broker deals.