Rough Trade

28

6p.m. At the Bouffes du Nord

At 6 p.m. precisely Soleiman, along with two Turkish friends from the Committee, entered the building where Jencovitch had his workroom. The Turkish workers were waiting for them upstairs. Three minutes after Soleiman, Romero, in the uniform of a Telecom worker, came through the door in his turn and went to a dark corner under the main staircase where there was a tangled mass of cables, quite different from the normal security systems in modern blocks. He’d examined them in advance with an expert. He cut the cable which he’d marked with red. From that moment the Jencovitch workroom no longer had a telephone.

Three floors up, Soleiman had just come in. Daquin had warned him: ‘This is the most delicate part of the operation. Don’t let your arrival go wrong.’ The Turks stood up.

‘I don’t mean any harm to anyone. But I’ve got the right to have a man-to-man discussion with that bastard who gets workers roughed up by the cops.’

Stake everything on surprise and speed. The Turks went round the tables and collected anything lying about that could be used as weapons, such as scissors or craft knives.

‘All right then, everyone leave, it’s time.’

Glances at the boss, who was frozen with astonishment. The Africans began the walkout, the Yugoslavs followed, with some encouragement from the Turks. Romero heard them coming down the stairs above his head, looked at his watch and began to time the operation. Daquin had said ten minutes.

Upstairs there was no one left, only Soleiman and the boss, facing each other. The latter began to recover.

‘I’ll call the police.’

‘Try, your phone’s cut off.’

The boss rushed over and picked up the receiver: no dialling tone. He went towards the door.

‘No point, the Turks have locked it and you haven’t got your keys any more.’

The boss searched his pockets: no keys.

‘You see, stop worrying and look at these photos.’

And Soleiman put down on a table three large photos and moved one step away.

The boss looked. His wife, his wife totally naked, making love with Meillant. On his own bed. He was livid.

‘Haven’t you ever seen them at it? He’s quite gifted, the Superintendent, even if he looks a quiet fatherly type. I’d be surprised if you did all that with your wife.’

Daquin had said: ‘Destroy him utterly before you come to blows, it’s safer.’

The boss, mad with panic and anger, came towards Soleiman.

‘What do you want of me, then? What do you want of me?’

This was the moment. Soleiman wasn’t a fighter. But Daquin had rehearsed him: ‘When he comes close to you, threaten him in the neck, as though you were going to catch hold of him and strangle him. Knock him down flat with a kick in the crotch. Knock him down with a single blow.’ The man collapsed, screaming, clutching his crotch. Incredibly easy. Anger and bitterness were satisfied. As the man lay on the floor Soleiman kicked him in the ribs, although he hardly knew why. He caught hold of his shirt and dragged him over to the wall, propped him up, held him with his left hand and struck him hard, three times, with his right. A trace of blood on his hand.

At the bottom of the stairs Romero had reconnected the telephone and removed his Telecom worker’s overall. He went out and sat in the unmarked police car which was parked on the other side of the crossroads, by the taxi rank. From there he watched the entrance to the building.

Jencovitch was ready now. He had difficulty in breathing, stabs of pain, blood in his mouth, the image of his wife before his eyes. He didn’t understand anything that was happening to him, he was afraid of dying. Soleiman began to speak: ‘You don’t interest me, it’s Meillant I want. You’re going to tell me now what you’ve been paying Meillant, for how long and what he’s been doing for you in exchange. If you refuse to talk I’ll show the photos tomorrow morning to all your workers and in all the Yugoslav cafés. Your wife could always take up a career as a tart, but as for you, you could just pack your bags.’

‘It’s been going on for five years.’ He spat, there was blood in his saliva, he kept his eyes closed. ‘I pay a 1,000 francs a month. I get a warning in advance if there’s to be a work inspection. And if a worker causes me trouble Meillant arrests him. After that the man behaves. Since I’ve been paying I’ve never had any trouble.’

Daquin had told Soleiman: ‘Keep the pressure up all the time, don’t allow him a single moment to recover. He mustn’t stop being frightened.’ Soleiman stood up, caught hold of a wooden chair and smashed it hard against the cutters’ table. Then he took the firmest strut out of it and came up to the man on the floor.

‘Do you realize I could break your limbs without any trouble? You’re on your own. Your wife’s been called in by the police. And she’ll stay there as long as I’m here. There’s nobody in the flat opposite. Do you understand what that means?’ The boss looked at him. ‘You’ll pick up the telephone and call Meillant.’

‘The telephone’s not working.’

‘It is now.’ Soleiman put the instrument down beside the boss and took off the receiver with his foot. The dialling tone could be heard. Soleiman put the receiver back. ‘You see. And Meillant is in his office. In fact he’s waiting for your call. You’ve got to manage somehow, but you must get him to come here. As for me, I’ll leave a tape recorder here and I’ll go into the next room. I want to hear Meillant talking about the money he receives. I want to hear him say he’s a bastard.’

‘I can’t do that.’

No time to finish his sentence. Soleiman caught hold of his left hand, placed it on a corner of the table and brought down the strut from the chair on it. The hand cracked, the boss screamed. No movement in the building. The man sweated and wept.

‘I’ll call. Give me the phone.’

Soleiman handed him the instrument. Jencovitch got Meillant at once. Soleiman didn’t take his eyes off him.

‘I’ve been beaten up … The militants from the Committee … Photos, and they know things … I’m alone, I’m afraid, come, I can’t move … My wife’s being questioned by the police about accounting problems … Yes, please, quickly …’

*

At the station Meillant hung up, looking preoccupied. Opposite him sat Lavorel, who had come to ask his advice about how to stop the circulation of black money between manufacturers and workrooms.

‘I can’t stay, sorry, a very urgent call.’

‘Not to worry, I understand very well, we’ll meet again. Nothing urgent.’

Lavorel went back to passage du Désir to wait for Daquin.

*

Jencovitch had hung up.

‘That’s a good boy.’

With his finger Soleiman wiped the tears away from the man’s face as he lay on the floor. Daquin had told him: ‘Keep him occupied until Meillant comes. It’ll take a long time. He mustn’t be allowed to recover.’

‘Tell me what you’re going to say to Meillant when he arrives?’

The boss, who was sweating, didn’t reply. Soleiman caught hold of his injured hand and squeezed it. Another yell.

‘What are you going to say to him?’

‘That I pay him, he must protect me.’

‘What do I want to hear?’

‘Yes, he’s had money, yes, he’s going to protect me.’

Soleiman quickly concealed a miniature tape recorder inside a sewing-machine. ‘If I get the tape I’ll give you the photo and you’ll never see me again. If something goes wrong the photos will go all round the Sentier and my buddies will come back and beat you on the back with iron bars. Can you still manage to understand that?’

The boss signalled that he could.

Soleiman bent over him. A dear memory of an icy day in Istanbul during the winter of ’78-’79, a mob of macho young men attacking gays and he was pushed along the ground against a wall. The assailant who was kicking him bent over, caught hold of him by his balls and yelled: ‘Hey, he’s still got some.’ And then nothing, a black hole.

Soleiman smiled and put his hand between the boss’s legs. A look of desperation. Don’t be frightened, you’re not going to die, not just yet. In a rapid movement his hand tightened over one of the balls, and the boss fainted.

Soleiman stood up again, went to the workroom door, took the bunch of keys out of the boss’s jacket, unlocked the door, replaced the keys in the pocket and waited on the landing.

From the other side of the crossroads Romero saw Meillant enter the building. Amazing. The crazy plan seemed to be working. Looking at his watch, he let two minutes go by, then walked calmly towards the building, went in and waited on the landing.

Soleiman heard Meillant coming up. He closed the door again, crossed the room and on the way stroked the boss’s hair: he was still unconscious. ‘Concentrate, it’s the right moment now.’ And he went into the next room. Daquin was there, leaning against a table. Smiled at him. They went to the back of the apartment, opened the service door, locked it again and waited on the landing. Be wary of Meillant, he’s an old hand.

Meillant came in and went straight to Jencovitch, lying unconscious against the wall, the telephone on the floor beside him. He looked him over: some pink froth at the corner of his mouth, his left hand out of shape, a swelling between his legs, the guy was clearly in a bad way. Meillant checked that he wasn’t dead and went rapidly round the apartment: one can never be too careful. Nobody there and the service door locked. Came back to Jencovitch who was beginning to come round. Meillant crouched down beside him.

‘What’s happened to you?’ Jencovitch cast a terrified look round. ‘We’re alone, you can talk.’

‘The guy from the other day, the one you threw down the stairs. He came back, with some of his buddies, after the workroom had closed.’ He had difficulty in getting his breath back. ‘They beat me up.’ Meillant waited for the rest. ‘They’ve got photos of you, with my wife, in my bed.’ A series of little sobs.

‘What do they want to do with them?’

‘They want to show them all round the district if I don’t pay. Commisaire, if those photos are circulated, I’m a dead man.’ Meillant thought he wouldn’t be too lively, either. ‘Commissaire, I’ve paid you 1,000 francs every month for five years.’ Jencovitch clutched Meillant’s jacket with one hand. ‘You know that, don’t you? You haven’t suddenly forgotten?’

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘You’re not going to let me down now?’

‘Let go of me and calm down. No, I’m not going to let you down. When do you have to pay?’

‘Tomorrow morning, here, at 7 o’clock.’

‘And how much?’

‘30,000 francs.’

‘Not too greedy, that means they intend to come back. Tomorrow morning I’ll be there with a few men. We’ll arrest the others, get the photos back by force and we’ll have them deported from France quickly. It won’t be said that anyone can get away with blackmailing the people I protect and not be punished for it. Now, I’ll help you get home and your wife will look after you when she comes back.’

There was a sound in the next room. Meillant raised his head and saw Daquin standing I the doorway. He stood up, without a word. Daquin called Romero, who came in.

‘Pick up this guy, get him as far as the local station and record his statement. After that, off to the hospital.’

Romero led Jencovitch away while Daquin took the tape recorder out of the sewing-machine and slipped it into his pocket. Meillant sat down on the corner of the table.

‘I was afraid of some underhand blow but I didn’t think it would come from you. What do you want?’

‘Don’t you want to know first what cards I’m holding?’ Meillant was silent. ‘Nothing very serious in one sense, but they all add up to something that will go down very badly just when the legalization of clandestine Turkish workers is being negotiated.’

Daquin put down on the table beside Meillant a photocopy of the accounts page taken from Martens and the photos of Meillant with Madame Jencovitch.

‘You’ve been regularly selling false papers, and some genuine ones as well, to the illegal workers in the Sentier. You make some workroom bosses pay for your protection. You’re very close to Thomas and his late wife, who don’t have a good press in the police force at the moment. I won’t mention how a member of the team negotiating with the ministry was beaten up last Wednesday, right here. As for the activities of your mistress, Anna Beric …’ Meillant reacted to that, ‘she’s a key person in the system of false invoices and black money that the Sentier lives on today. Without going back to the murder of her pimp. And she’s the woman in your life. It’s a rather heavy casebook, don’t you think?’

‘That’s enough, Daquin. What do you want?’

‘Two things. Your resignation. And the return of Anna Beric.’

A long pause for reflection.

‘Why my resignation?’

‘To protect those behind me.’ What would he have said if I’d replied: To please my lover?

Another silence.

‘And what will you give me in exchange?’

‘An honourable reputation, a happy and … prosperous retirement. I’ll keep all I know to myself.’

‘What about Anna?’

‘Anna will spend a few months in jail, a year at the very most, before rejoining you. I don’t think that sort of thing will frighten her.’ Meillant shot him a suspicious glance: does he know her? ‘The Sentier’s changing, Meillant. A lot. It’s time to go.’

Meillant looked at his watch: 7 p.m. He picked up the telephone. The director of the urban police forces. He’s left, but would you like his chief secretary? Very well, the chief secretary. Meillant speaking … He had just seen his cardiologist. Serious health problems. Very upset by the Thomas incident. Requests early retirement and would like to take some leave while waiting for the formalities to be worked out. Call tomorrow at the director’s office? Certainly, he’d be there.

‘As for Anna, it’s for her to decide. I’ll give you her reply in an hour’s time at your office.’

And Meillant left. Daquin marvelled.

*

Soleiman left the Jencovitch workroom by the back staircase while Daquin was finishing off Meillant. He felt deeply uneasy. Mustn’t think about it, that was important. Tomorrow, we’ll see. Impossible to join Daquin that evening. He went down the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis as far as the Boulevards. Spend the night with a girl, any girl.

10 p.m. Roissy

The warehouses were piled up with merchandise, but deserted. Dim bluish light. Romero and Marinoni, wearing packers’ overalls, both with badges perfectly in order, carrying a large toolbox. Dumont had accompanied them as far as the Turkimport packing-cases. ‘The security people do a round every hour. They’ve just done the last one. Check your watches. You’ve got to stop working before you hear them coming and hide right here, between these four cases. They won’t have their dogs tonight. Be brave. Good luck!’

It wasn’t difficult to open the cases, nor to burrow through the first layer of merchandise. It would be much more difficult to go further down. And closing them was tricky. It was no good hammering gently, the noise seemed deafening. Three cases during the first hour. The hiding-place. Romero and Marinoni were sweating. And if Dumont … The round went through. Work began again. The fourth case. The cover came off. The inner packing pushed aside. A range of firing-pins for sub-machine-guns, apparently.

Marinoni hugged Romero.

‘Shall we look further down?’

‘Not worth it. And no more cases. That’s enough.’

Closed it again. Marked it discreetly, collect all the tools and put them away. Wait in the hiding-place. Dumont would come at 2 a.m. Romero fell asleep.