Paris is divided up into twenty arrondissements or municipal districts each with its own number, which to the casual visitor seem to be scattered randomly about the city but are actually arranged in a rather quirky helix pattern, spiralling out from the centre to form something like a snail shell within the rough circle of the Boulevard Périphérique, Paris’s ring road. The address that Thierry Chevrolet’s ex-girlfriend had given Ben was situated on the border of the tenth and nineteenth districts, where the helix unwound itself towards its outer edge in the north-east of the city, about one o’clock on the clock face of the circle.
Ben cut across the city in the Alpina and drank in the many changes since his last visit of any duration to the place. He hacked along Boulevard de la Chapelle, following the path of the raised viaduct Métro line, and reached the Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad, where Abby’s directions told him to head further north-east up Avenue de Flandre, parallel with the river. Everywhere beneath the Métro viaduct were migrant camps, spread out like a post-apocalyptic settlement of makeshift tents and shanty dwellings, with garbage choking the pavements, washing lines strung up between trees and signposts, bits of outdoor furniture scattered here and there. Hundreds of Afghans occupied one stretch near the Stalingrad Métro station; further up along the street were the Sudanese and the Somalis, the Eritreans and the Ethiopians, all clustered into their own separate camps. So much for multiculturalism. The scene was about as far from the picture-postcard tourist image of Paris as it was possible to get. The government could send in the troops to clear the place up, as it had done before and no doubt would do again, but the tents would soon return, over and over.
Welcome to the new Europe, Ben thought. These were problems that couldn’t easily be fixed, and he was glad that wasn’t his job.
Thierry Chevrolet seemed to have landed himself with a problem that wouldn’t easily be fixed, either. Ben didn’t know who he’d borrowed money from, or how much, or why, but it didn’t sound good. And if Thierry had been in hiding for two weeks already, there was a decent chance the bone-breakers might catch up with him any time. In which case the job Ben had come here to do might turn suddenly unpleasant, too.
The earlier sunshine had disappeared behind grey clouds. It began to rain as he headed up Avenue de Flandre, passing high-rises and shops, a lot of them with shuttered, grafitti’d windows. After a couple of blocks he spotted the side street where Thierry’s buddy Pierrot lived. He found a parking space for the Alpina and walked the rest of the way to Pierrot’s building, which made Romy Juneau’s place look like the Luxembourg Palace by comparison.
On his way Ben noticed the chunky black Audi SUV parked in front of the building, which looked much newer and shinier than most of the other cars along the kerbside, including his own. He didn’t think it belonged to Pierrot. This could be a bad sign.
He pushed inside the building, checked his notebook for Pierrot’s apartment number and climbed the dirty staircase checking doors as he went. Pierrot’s door was third on the right along a hallway on the second floor. Standing outside it was a definite confirmation of the bad sign parked in the street below.
The two very large men were leaning against the wall either side of the doorway, like two bouncers flanking a nightclub entrance. The one closest to Ben probably tipped the scales at about seventeen stones, which was three stones heavier than he was. From the guy’s shape, it looked like most of that bulk was lean muscle, cultivated through countless hours in the weights room. The one on the right was larger still, but he’d invested his time differently and was as fat and round as a baby orca. Both of them were standing to attention with their thick arms folded across their swollen chests. Both staring at Ben as he walked towards Pierrot’s door. Neither showing any degree of friendliness. They were white, with some kind of Mediterranean ethnicity like Greek or Armenian. Black hair razed to a stubble, dark trench coats, leather gloves, shiny shoes. They looked like a couple of extras auditioning for parts in a new Godfather movie. And their presence outside Pierrot’s door left Ben in little doubt that Thierry’s creditors had indeed already managed to track him down.
Ben didn’t slacken his step as he walked up to them. He stopped, standing about five feet from the door, making a triangle with the muscleman on his right and the baby orca on his left. Each was a couple of inches taller than Ben, who measured just a fraction short of six feet. They stared. He stared back. He would have offered them a nice smile, but they didn’t seem in the mood for pleasantries.
Ben said in French, ‘Salut les gars.’ Hi, guys. Bright and affable. There was no reply. He couldn’t hear any sounds of hideous torture coming from the other side of the door, just some muffled conversational voices. It was hard to say how many of their associates were inside the apartment. He’d find out soon enough.
Ben pointed at the door. ‘I’ve come to see my friend Pierrot. How about stepping out of the way so I can go inside?’
‘Fuck off,’ the muscleman said. Ben hadn’t really expected much more in the way of eloquence.
‘You know, this doesn’t have to go badly,’ he said. ‘Whatever Thierry Chevrolet owes, I’m happy to settle the debt.’ He patted his leather jacket, where his wallet nestled inside. ‘Then we can all go about our separate business like the good-natured gentlemen we are. Now, I’m guessing you two aren’t exactly the heads of the operation. So maybe you should open the door and let me talk with your boss inside. Okay?’
The muscleman exchanged glances with his monstrous pal. The two of them managed a brief grin, then turned the dead-eyed stare back on Ben.
He shrugged, as though he didn’t really care either way, which in truth he didn’t. ‘No? That’s a shame. Then I’ll have to open it myself.’
Ben took a step towards the door. Which put him within reach of either guy, and technically in danger of getting hit. But that much weight, whether composed of muscle or lard, had a lot of inertia to overcome before they could properly start moving. They would be slow, and he was fast. If a punch launched towards him, he could casually take out his cigarettes and light one up before it arrived. And he already knew that it was the muscleman, as the actual or self-declared superior of the pair, who would move first.
It happened exactly as Ben anticipated. As he moved towards the door, the muscleman peeled himself away from the wall and a big knuckly fist flew towards Ben’s chest. A lot of drive behind it, no question. The guy had probably hit a lot of people before now, considering his line of work, and he had some crude understanding of how to inflict significant bodily damage on mostly unsuspecting, untrained victims.
But the rib-cracking blow never landed. Ben watched the big knuckly fist float towards him, then reached up with one hand as though he was catching a tennis ball gently lobbed his way. He caught the guy’s fist smack in his palm and deflected and twisted it at the same time.
It was the most basic of Aikido wrist locks. Ben brought up his other hand to trap the guy’s hand against his own. His fingers flowed over the guy’s wrist like water. It took barely any strength to lever the joint so painfully that the muscleman was forced down on one knee, letting out a grunt of surprise and agony. That was what these bodybuilder types didn’t seem to understand. You can spend a decade pumping your muscles up to the size of wholemeal bread loaves, but behind that suit of armour your sinews, ligaments and joints remain just as fragile and vulnerable to attack as when you were a skinny, pencil-necked fifteen-year-old.
Then Ben stepped casually around to the guy’s right, taking the trapped wrist with him, and drove him all the way down to the floor with his arm levered up behind his back. It would only have taken a couple more pounds of pressure to break the joint. Ben pushed it through all the way until he felt the crackle and snap. At which point the muscleman would have started screaming, if Ben hadn’t already been standing on his neck and crushing his face into the tiled floor.
By then the baby orca was stepping towards Ben, reaching inside his trench coat for what Ben knew was hidden in there. Ben trampled over the fallen muscle guy and put an elbow in the fat one’s solar plexus while sweeping his legs out from under him with a scything kick. The orca hit the floor with a crash that must have shaken the whole building.