The Mad and the Bad

12

Nénesse, the driver, took charge of cooking the day’s two meals. For lunch, steaks grilled with fines herbes followed by cheese. For dinner, fried sardines. The gangsters had brought ten liters of Corbières with them. They drank in moderation. Thompson stuck to water. Before each meal he swallowed two black capsules.

During lunch, Julie kept asking for more wine, and after a while Thompson stopped giving her the chance to ask. Instead he refilled her glass generously as soon as it seemed to be getting empty.

From the floor came the drone of a little transistor radio. In the news headlines there was no mention of either Peter or Julie.

The girl’s head began to droop. Thompson cleared the table, throwing the cardboard plates into a plastic bag. Julie lay down on a bunk. Her head hurt and so did her belly. She tried vaguely to distract the boy with a game of Chinese portraits. Peter’s voice trembled as he played, and his eyes were red. He stretched out alongside Julie.

“When you threw your coffee,” he asked, “were you going to get away with me or on your own?”

Julie shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Peter snuggled closer to her.

“I like you better than Marcelle,” he whispered.

The blond giant had left the chalet in a leisurely way. Julie surmised that he was going the rounds or mounting a watch on some hill. At the top of the valley’s left flank a jumble of rocks rose above the trees and could easily offer cover to a lookout while affording him a long view.

Nénesse and Bibi were throwing dice on the front steps of the house. They could be heard keeping score in low, unexcited tones.

Thompson was lying on an upper bunk, the rifle alongside him between his body and the wall. He was gazing at the ceiling. His hands were crossed on his stomach. He was experiencing quiet little burps.

An ulcer?

“What are we waiting for?” Julie asked at length.

Thompson sat on the edge of his bed, letting his long thin legs dangle. He had to lower his head so as not to bang it on the ceiling. His eyes were red. Coffee stains were visible on his jacket and the front of his sweater.

“Oh yes, I have a letter for you to sign.”

“The letter?”

Thompson lowered himself clumsily to the floor. He bent down and reached under the lower bunk for a worn brown leather briefcase. He rooted in it and withdrew a typewritten letter, which he laid out on the table.

“Come and sign.”

“Let me read it at least!”

“As you wish.”

Julie sat at the table. The letter was addressed to Hartog and crudely typed. The girl read:

Monsieur Hartog, I am writing to tell you that I have little Peter with me. I took him away on the spur of the moment, on an impulse. Now that I have calmed down, it would be easy enough to come back with the boy. Too easy, in fact. I can now see things clearly at last. I have had it up to here with all the humiliation that you cause me, you and others like you. Death to the pigs!!! Death to the rich!!! I have just as much right as you to get enjoyment out of life. I want money. If you call the police, I will hang Peter with a rope. Or else I’ll cut his little body up every which way with my knife. So you had better follow my orders, keep your mouth shut, and wait for my next letter for me to tell you how to deliver the money to me. Get a million new francs together in small bills. No need to worry about Peter so long as you are sensible.

Julie looked at Thompson. She dug her fingernails into the wood of the table. A nervous twitch pulled at the edges of her mouth and her teeth were bared in a ghastly grin.

“You might as well laugh it off, mademoiselle, I assure you.” Thompson retreated towards the bunk where he had left his weapon. “You’re bound to be found innocent in the end.”

“But this letter!” Julie managed to say. “This letter!”

“It’s the letter of a madwoman, granted. We know your history. But I’m sure you understand that Hartog must be reduced to a state of terror. Do you understand, or are you really balmy?”

“I’d like another large glass of wine.”

Thompson nodded. With his rifle under his arm, he went over to the kitchen area, poured wine into a tin mug, and held it out to Julie. She drank it down.

“You really expect me to sign that?”

Thompson opened Julie’s bag, which was on the bunk near Peter. He foraged in it for a moment and found a ballpoint pen.

“You have no choice,” he told her. “You don’t want me to start pulling the lad’s hair again, do you? Or tearing off his ear? Or breaking one of his fingers?”

“Can I think it over?”

“It’ll do you no good. I’m sorry. Sign.”

Julie took the pen that the man was holding out to her.

“You wrote this on a typewriter,” she observed. “You wrote it with my Hermes, which that other fat fuck stole this morning.”

“Yes,” said Thompson. “The perfect touch.”

Julie signed.