The Erasers

5

In the murky water of the aquarium, furtive shadows pass-an undulation whose vague existence dissolves of its own accord…and afterward it is questionable whether there had been anything to begin with. But the dark patch reappears and makes two or three circles in broad daylight, soon coming back to melt, behind a curtain of algae, deep in the protoplasmic depths. A last eddy, quickly dying away, makes the mass tremble for a second. Again everything is calm…Until, suddenly, a new form emerges and presses its dream face against the glass…Pauline, sweet Pauline… and no sooner does it appear than it vanishes in its turn, to make way for other specters and phantoms. The drunk is making up a riddle. A man with thin lips, in an overcoat buttoned up to his neck is waiting on his chair in the middle of an empty room. His motionless face, his gloved hands clasped on his knees, betray no impatience. He has plenty of time. Nothing can keep his plan from being carried out. He is preparing to receive a visit-not the one from a disturbed, evasive person without any strength of character-but a visit, on the contrary, from someone who can be counted on: it is to this person that tonight’s execution, the second, will be entrusted. In the first murder, he had been kept in the background, but his work was flawless; while Garinati, for whom everything had been so meticulously prepared, had not even been capable of turning out the light. \nd now, this morning, he had let his man get away:

“What time this morning?”

“I don’t have any idea,” the manager says.

“You didn’t see him leave?”

“If I had seen him leave, I’d know what time it was!”

Leaning on his bar, the manager wonders if he should tell Wallas about this visit. No. They’ll have to manage by themselves: no one told him to say anything.

Besides, Wallas has already left the little cafe to return to the scene…