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  The Dauphine crossed half of an ever more snow-covered Paris, went up Boulevard Sébastopol, then turned right and right again so as to come back down Rue Saint-Martin. The whores were as plentiful as the cops were rare. It is well known that the riffraff are a bastion of the social order, and it was certainly not in such a neighborhood as this that the cops would be prowling tonight. Which is why the Dauphine stopped there. Épaulard and Cash got out and explored the streets. Near three different tobacco shops they found mailboxes, into each of which they slipped a few envelopes addressed variously to the chief Paris dailies, to French and foreign press agencies, and to the minister of the interior. Each envelope contained a manifesto written by Treuffais, Buenaventura, and Meyer and laboriously reproduced with felt-tip pens and lettering stencils on stolen onionskin paper.

  Somewhere between two mailboxes, in one of the portes-cochères where the streetwalkers huddled shivering, draped in synthetic furs but obliged to display deep cleavage despite the cold, Épaulard had spied and contemplated an extremely beautiful whore, tall, imperious, and gaunt. The fifty-year-old, already stirred by his proximity to Cash, very nearly suggested to his companion that the two of them pay a visit to a short-time hotel; in his mind the beautiful whore and Cash were one and the same, and he envisioned possessing them simultaneously. But the thought was ephemeral, and the last of the letters were soon mailed. Cash turned to him.

  “What’s with you? Why the goo-goo eyes?”

  “I’m freezing,” babbled Épaulard, grabbing Cash and pulling her to him. She did not resist, acting intrigued but not displeased. He released her, catching his breath.

  “I’m an old fool,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Coquettishness will get you nowhere,” said Cash. “Let’s get back to the car.”

  She took his arm and snuggled close in a casual way. They got back in the Dauphine, left Paris, and were halted three times at police roadblocks. Each time they were made to open the trunk, and the uniforms played the beams of their flashlights over the interior of the car. They were not detained. The anxiety occasioned by these stops heightened Épaulard’s emotional state. He fell prey to a wild joy. With Épaulard at the wheel now and Cash cuddled up against him, the poorly heated Dauphine bounded through the snow until it reached Couzy at three thirty in the morning. It was Saturday.

  14

  DURING the Friday-to-Saturday night, the minister of the interior got very little sleep. He conferred with representatives of the police, the gendarmerie, the army, and RG, issued a communiqué, had himself informed of the precise circumstances of the kidnapping, and placed Madame Gabrielle and her personnel in police custody along with two johns present in the brothel at the time of the action and a few other call girls from her stable. He personally entrusted the conduct of the investigation to a certain Commissioner Goémond, who was temporarily without any particular assignment but had always proved himself exceptionally devoted to the State. He updated the Élysée, Matignon, Foreign Affairs, and the United States. He ordered a vast raid on leftist circles. He prepared to seek authorization from the State Security Court, albeit after the fact, for such nighttime searches.

  At five fifty on Saturday morning he went up to the top floor of the ministry for a nap. At seven fifteen he was woken by his chief of staff, who had not slept at all and was haggard and unshaven.

  “Something rather astonishing has occurred,” announced the chief of staff.

  “Do tell.”

  “Apparently the kidnapping was filmed.”

  “Filmed? What do you mean? By the leftists?”

  “No, no. There are two guys from RG downstairs. It would seem that a freelancer working for the SDECE was staked out across the street from Club Zero with a movie camera. Hmm. The purpose being to create dossiers. Hmm. To develop means, you see, of exerting pressure on the notables who patronize this establishment. And, well, it appears that this guy, this freelancer for the SDECE, filmed the operation; the SDECE has not informed us officially of this, and there’s the rub, because our information apparently originates from infiltrated RG elements.”

  “Infiltrated? How so, infiltrated?” demanded the minister, still half-asleep. “What is this horseshit?”

  “I brought you coffee. Here, if you wish.”

  “Yes please. No, no sugar. I repeat, what is this horseshit?”

  “An RG guy,” explained the chief of staff, “or a guy in their pay, infiltrated into the SDECE’s Grabeliau faction, was, uh, the one who gave them this information.”

  “What information? Gave who? What are you telling me, for Christ’s sake?”

  “The information,” said the chief of staff patiently, “that the Grabeliau faction of the SDECE had a guy staked out across from the club, a guy with a camera, who was supposed to film important clients with a view to creating dossiers on them . . . This information was conveyed to the RG by an operative whom they had infiltrated into the SDECE.”

  The minister finished his cup of coffee and dabbed his chin with a paper napkin. His gaze was unwavering and hard. His jowls trembled.

  “Where is this guy, this cameraman?”

  “That is the question,” the chief of staff answered elegantly in English.

  The minister leapt from his bed and nodded soberly. Barefoot, in blue pajamas, he went into the bathroom and plugged in his electric razor. The chief of staff dogged his footsteps, rubbing his lip with his forefinger.

  “This story stinks,” said the minister.

  “It stinks even more,” agreed the chief of staff, “when you think that the two RG guys downstairs say that it will be necessary to negotiate with the Grabeliau faction to get hold of the film.”

  “Send the two guys to Goémond,” said the minister. “For Christ’s sake! It should be obvious that there’s no way we’re ever going to deal with the Grabeliau faction. Not the ministry in any case. Send a detailed memo to Goémond, so that he clearly understands the situation, and send him the two jokers.”

  “Very well,” said the chief of staff, but he did not budge.

  “What else do you want?”

  “Goémond is not authorized to negotiate.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” said the minister again. “To negotiate what?”

  “The films. The Grabeliau faction will demand the removal of the sanctions, the rehiring of fired officials, and, uh, this is about the SAC and, as you well know, those expelled from the SAC have made common cause with the Grabeliau faction.* So the faction will certainly want financial support restored to the dissidents and a halt to legal action against the Vexin World Druidic Brotherhood . . .”

  The minister pursed his lips and shaved for a moment or two without speaking. Then:

  “The statesman’s job is no cakewalk!” he said with vehemence.

  He put the razor down and returned to the bedroom, the chief of staff still trotting at his heels.

  “I can’t accept this,” added the minister, sitting down on the edge of the bed and looking for his cigarettes.

  “Here, have one of mine,” said the chief of staff, proffering a pack of Gauloises. “Hold on, I have a light. Here. There we are. Hmm. There is another solution. Suppose we have Goémond shut them down, try to settle their hash by intimidation. And while we’re at it nab as many operatives of the Grabeliau faction as possible, including SAC dissidents. We could even accuse them of being in cahoots with the kidnappers, so discrediting everybody in one fell swoop. As for the films, we’re bound to get them by applying a little third degree to these gents. Some of them will surely squeal.”

  “That means breaking some crockery.”

  “The abscess has to be lanced.”

  “Listen,” said the minister. “You act for the best. I reserve the right to intervene personally later.”

  “And hang me out to dry?”

  “Well, you know how it is. Eventually, yes.”

  “Very well,” said the chief of staff, displaying no chagrin. “I’ll phone Goémond.”
/>
  “That’s right,” said the minister. “In the meantime, I’ll do some thinking.”

  *Service d’Action Civique, an unofficial parallel police force (1960–1981) reporting directly to de Gaulle and his successors.

  15

  CRUDE PROVOCATION AGAINST PROGRESS OF THE POPULAR UNION

  Two policemen and the chauffeur of the Ambassador of the United States shot by an armed group of “leftists.” Ambassador abducted.

  ———————————

  THE WORKING-CLASS AND DEMOCRATIC FORCES READYING A VIGOROUS RESPONSE TO THE PROVOCATEURS

  16

  ÉPAULARD awoke with a start and sat up in bed in a single motion. It took him a few seconds to recognize the bedroom. A brilliant light shone through the gaps in the shutters and shimmered through the irregular windowpanes. Meyer was lying on his side in the next bed. His mouth open, he was snoring slightly. As Épaulard was looking at him, he groaned and turned over to face the wall, using both hands to pull the bedclothes up over himself. It was not very warm in the bedroom. Épaulard’s breath formed white plumes.

  The fifty-year-old looked at his watch. Ten o’clock—ten in the morning, to judge by the broad daylight outside. The man got out of bed quietly; he saw no reason to wake Meyer up. He had slept in his underclothes and sweater. He took his pants from the back of a chair next to the bed and slipped into them. He was pensive. The details of the night before came back to him. He reviewed everything in his head. One dead and two seriously wounded, so the radio had said. Nothing to boast about.

  Épaulard took his automatic from under the pillow, put it in his jacket pocket and silently left the room. In the hallway, he went and opened the next door along. Buenaventura was sitting on a chair reading a crime novel. Alongside him another chair held a full ashtray, a pack of Gauloises, a book of matches, an automatic and a spare magazine. Ambassador Poindexter was lying in his bed, his upper body slightly elevated on the pillows, eyes closed, glasses askew, and lower lip flapping.

  “Hello,” said Épaulard. “Hasn’t he woken up yet?”

  “He’s been half-awake for hours. He keeps going back to sleep. He’s not agitated. I have no problem with him.”

  The ambassador opened his eyes. His hands fumbled with his glasses as he tried but failed to straighten them.

  “You’re m-mad!” he cried in a furry voice. “You people are m-mad.”

  “See?” said the Catalan. “He’s coming to. He doesn’t keep saying ‘Have a heart.’ ”

  “I want to speak to your leader,” announced Poindexter. “I insist—”

  He was burbling. His eyes closed once more.

  “Mad!” he repeated, his voice clearer now, and then he fell asleep again.

  “You okay? Holding up?” Épaulard asked Buenaventura.

  “Yeah.”

  “No regrets?”

  “No regrets. What about you?”

  “Me neither,” stated Épaulard.

  “You can get out now,” said the Catalan. “Go back to Paris. The main part is over. No point you running risks for something you don’t believe in.”

  “Forget it,” replied Épaulard. “Look, I’m going down to have a bite and a drink, then I’ll be back up to relieve you.”

  “There’s no hurry. I don’t feel tired.”

  “Okay.”

  Épaulard reclosed the door and started down to the ground floor. In the common area a fine big fire flamed in the hearth. Cash was sitting next to it in an upholstered armchair with a bowl of café au lait on her knees into which she was dunking a piece of buttered baguette. She was wearing a red flannel dressing gown over black pajamas and on her feet were white mules.

  “You are delightful,” said Épaulard with sincerity.

  “You’re not going to go on using vous with me, are you?”

  The fifty-year-old shrugged and descended the last few stairs. Cash got up and set her bowl and bread down on the table.

  “Come and sit by the fire,” she said. “I’ll bring you some coffee and bread and butter.”

  Épaulard nodded, filled with gratitude. While Cash was in the kitchen he went over to the windows, whose shutters were open, and the feeling of comfort and joy that he had been experiencing for the last few moments only grew as he contemplated the snow blanketing the countryside. The flakes had been coming down all night long. At present a white sun shone over a deep silky layer, unctuous as lard, as crème Chantilly, or as champagne ice cream.

  Then Épaulard turned around, and the feeling of comfort vanished when he noticed a Sten gun lying on the bench beside the table.

  “What is that thing?” he cried.

  “It’s a submachine gun,” Cash replied from the kitchen.

  “I see that. Where did it come from?”

  “It’s mine. A family heirloom.”

  “Well, bravo. But what the hell is it doing here?”

  “It could be useful, don’t you think?”

  “Sweetie,” said Épaulard, “get it through your head that if the cops find us, we give up. Even at my age I prefer the can to a coffin. Kindly do me the favor of disassembling that thing and putting it away, wherever you like, but I don’t want to see it.”

  He went into the kitchen, where Cash was buttering bread.

  “Yes, boss,” said the girl.

  Épaulard ruffled her hair.

  “I mean it,” he said, smiling.

  “I know, boss.”

  On the kitchen table a Melody Boy tuned to France Inter Paris 514 was playing Nat King Cole, “Route 66.”

  “Did you catch the ten o’clock news?” asked the ex–shark fisherman, ex–FTP Resistance fighter, ex-killer, and ex-loser, as he played with Cash’s hair. “What did they say?”

  “Nothing of interest. A thousand leftists questioned in Paris.”

  “Shit!”

  “What? That was predictable, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. Shit just the same.”

  “The papers got our text but refer to it only indirectly, as if they don’t know yet what they are going to do.”

  “It’s true they don’t know.”

  “We stopped the minister of the interior from sleeping: he spent the night at Place Beauvau conferring and taking measures. There was another announcement along the lines of ‘Republican order will be maintained.’ In Marseilles, they arrested some neo-Poujadist shopkeepers with dynamite in their car.”

  “And the Ford Consul?”

  “No mention.”

  “Probably means they’ve found it,” said Épaulard.

  Cash put the bread on a gaily decorated tin tray, added a bowl, and poured milk and coffee.

  “How many sugars?”

  “Two. What else did they say?”

  “A few idiotic reactions,” replied Cash, sugaring the café au lait, picking up the tray and the radio and going back into the common area with Épaulard right behind her. “The CP condemns what it calls provocation, naturally. The PSU considers that the revolutionary front is put at risk by this irresponsible act.* The Communist League calls for mass violence as opposed to adventurist coups de main. The Libération news agency has distributed a communiqué from a so-called New Red Army denouncing petty-bourgeois nihilists—that’s us—who are objectively complicit with the power structure and proposing the slogan ‘Down with All Little Neumanns!’”

  “Neumann? You mean like Alfred E. Neuman?” asked Épaulard in alarm.

  “Heinz Neumann,” Cash clarified, placing the tray and radio on the table. “A guy who had something to do with the Canton Commune in December 1927.”

  “I see,” said Épaulard. He sat down with a bowl in front of him. His brow was furrowed. He kept casting brief glances at Cash. The girl had sat down opposite him with her elbows on the table, contemplating the fifty-year-old, half smiling, and resting her chin on her bumping fists.

  “You are a weird girl,” said Épaulard.

  “And you’re a stupid old fool,” retorted Cash. “I waited for you
for an hour last night in my room. Why didn’t you come?”

  Épaulard choked on his bread and butter, playing for time.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “the idea occurred to me.”

  “I should hope so!” cried Cash.

  “But,” Épaulard went on, “I hesitated . . . I mean, I wondered. And . . . while I was wondering . . . well, shit! . . . I fell asleep.”

  He looked at Cash, who was trying not to burst out laughing.

  “I’m sorry,” he added.

  “Some man!” the girl exclaimed. “He goes to sleep wondering, and he’s sorry. What a joke! Hey, you want to make love to me or not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Tonight then. Finish your coffee. Come for a walk.”

  “Okay,” said Épaulard.

  He drank and got up. “I’m going to have to go up and relieve Buenaventura,” he noted.

  “What a stupid old fool!” said Cash. “I’m in for a pathetic romance, I can just feel it.”

  She went outside into the sunshine. Épaulard followed her. He felt shitty. Cash waited for him and took his arm. They circled the farm with the girl’s head on the old fool’s shoulder. Through the open door of the former stables they saw D’Arcy asleep, buried up to the neck in rotting straw. The alcoholic was pulling faces in his slumber.

  A little while later, the couple went back into the farmhouse. Épaulard felt lighthearted now.

  “Tonight,” Cash repeated, and the man went up to spell Buenaventura.

  *Parti Socialiste Unifié.

  17

  AT ELEVEN o’clock on Saturday morning, the minister of the interior’s chief of staff received Goémond.

  “How far have you got?”

  The commissioner clasped his hands beneath his chin with forefingers raised on either side of his mouth, which made his expression even sourer than usual. He was a fairly tall man, but he stooped so badly that he managed to seem stunted. His body swam in a large black shapeless overcoat. His pear-shaped head was endowed with an intellectual’s wide waxen brow, depleted eyebrows, and a receding chin. A sketchy mustache did not improve things.