“He’s armed,” said the short guy on the balcony without taking his eyes off Terrier.
Cox directed a friendly grimace at Terrier.
“Why did you kill the girl, too?” he asked.
“Is that a problem?”
“Not at all. She was his mistress. Not at all important. I’m just asking. You’ve never killed anyone who was not a target.”
“I was in a hurry.”
“I see,” said Cox. “You’re saying it jokingly, but it probably is the reason.”
“I’m not joking,” said Terrier.
Cox gulped down a bit of pancake dripping with melted butter and syrup, then shook his head with his eyelids lowered. As he ate, he leaned over and sighed and opened a leather briefcase at the foot of the sofa. Unhurriedly, he withdrew a brown package that could have been a ream of paper and pushed it across the table in Terrier’s direction. Terrier weighed the package in his hands. He looked at Cox.
“There’s a bonus,” said Cox. Linguistic details betrayed the fact that French was not his mother tongue. But he had no trace of an accent.
“Thanks.”
“There’s a rumor that you’re going to get out, Christian.”
“A rumor? That would surprise me.”
“You’ve sold your car, you’ve bought another one, you’ve given notice on your apartment. Various other things.”
“Okay,” said Martin Terrier. “I’m getting out.”
“It seems that you’re not going to work for someone else. You’re simply going to get out. I can easily understand that. Still, you should have talked to me about it. You can’t just disappear without warning.”
“But that’s just what I’m going to do.”
“We’re not in agreement,” said Cox. “Obviously, no one can force you, not with the kind of work you do.”
“That’s what I thought.” Terrier smiled.
“The company has an important project in preparation,” said Cox. “Just one, as far as you’re concerned. You can get out afterward. I daresay we’ll even make things easier for you. You know we can make things easier. On the other hand, we can make a lot of difficulties for you.”
“I’d advise against trying to fuck with me.” Terrier smiled again.
“For this project you can name your price. What if we said one hundred and fifty thousand French francs?”
Terrier shook his head.
“Two hundred thousand,” said Cox.
Terrier stood up, the brown package under his arm.
“Sorry. Not at any price. I’m going now.”
At a nonchalant pace, he withdrew as far as the staircase, the package under his left arm, his right arm partially bent. His blue eyes darted from Cox to the short guy on the balcony.
“Too bad,” said Cox. “Drive safely. If you ever want to get in contact with me, run an ad in Le Monde in the public announcements section. Never try to get in contact through other channels.”
“Goodbye,” said Terrier.
He went downstairs, crossed the paved courtyard, and left through a covered passage and a porte cochere. He headed toward the Seine, hailed a Mercedes taxi that was going by, had himself taken to Barbès, took the metro, changed lines two or three times, and found himself back in the open air at the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette station. He had an eleven o’clock appointment with his financial adviser. He was early, so he waited at a café counter with an espresso that tasted like leather.
Faulques, the financial adviser, lived in a ground-floor apartment on Rue de la Victoire, at the back of the courtyard, in two cramped rooms, one of which functioned as an office. He sometimes left the communicating door ajar, exposing a badly made-up bed with grayish sheets in the other room. Faulques was short, ugly, and bald, and he had two blackheads and a dirty, idiotic little mustache. Winter and summer he answered the door in shirtsleeves, his striped pants held up by tight elastic suspenders that crossed in the back. He was voluble and nervous and smoked hard-as-rock Toscanellis that were always going out.
“I don’t inspire confidence,” he had once said to Terrier. “People mistrust me because I look seedy. Oh, yes! I look seedy, Monsieur Charles. I look like a swindler!” He was shouting, even though Terrier had not tried to contradict him. “A good financial adviser should look prosperous. That’s what people think. But I don’t have the time. Do you want to know why?”
“Yes,” Terrier said patiently.
“Because I spend all my time taking care of money,” said Faulques triumphantly. “I make it move. I like that. Nothing else interests me. Neither food nor fucking nor dressing a little better: nothing. Do you understand what it means to have only one thing on your mind?”
“Maybe.”
Faulques had shaken his head skeptically and proceeded to show Terrier a photograph of his two adolescent girls, whom he saw once a month (he was divorced).
At eleven o’clock Terrier rang at Faulques’s door. He handed over the brown package and gave him detailed instructions. Faulques took notes and ventured a few comments. Then Terrier left.
A light sleet had begun to fall, turning to water as it landed. Terrier took the metro back to the Opéra station and returned home in a taxi.
Reaching his landing, Terrier saw that the door to his apartment was slightly ajar. He dropped to one knee as he drew his HK4 from under his jacket. Holding the weapon in both hands and pointing it at the doorjamb, he froze. He breathed slowly through the mouth in order to hear better. He heard nothing but the distant sounds of the street and the piano on the third floor on which someone was vainly and obstinately attempting to get the first twelve measures of the supposedly Pathetic Sonata right.
Suddenly, Terrier jumped forward, pushed the door open with his shoulder, and tumbled into the middle of the studio apartment. As he lay on his back, and after his eyes and the barrel of his automatic had quickly swept the room in all directions, the man slowly relaxed and lowered his arms. His joined hands and his weapon came to rest on his thighs. There was no one in the apartment. The pianist on the third floor had given up, and not even the tick-tock of the alarm clock could be heard. Actually, the alarm clock was busted up. The furniture was busted up, too—the armchairs gutted, the bedding torn up, the record player demolished. Terrier’s luggage had been slashed open with a knife and his things—now torn and filthy—scattered all over the studio. In the kitchenette, the cupboard doors had been pulled off and the dishes smashed.
Terrier got back up, returned the HK4 to its cloth shoulder holster, and closed the door. It had not been forced. He went into the kitchenette. On the linoleum was a filthy magma of mustard, flour, sugar, spices, liquor, broken dishes, and garbage.
“Sudan!” Terrier called softly.
He made little sounds with his mouth to entice the tomcat to come out. He frowned. He went to look under the bed, then went back to the kitchenette, swearing through his teeth.
On top of the refrigerator was a small key ring on a sheet of squared paper. Terrier examined the keys and the message on the piece of paper, which read: “I’m taking Sudan. Fuck you.” Alex had even signed it.
Terrier put the keys in his pocket and shook his head. His frown vanished. He laughed silently, then shook his