Eyes Full of Empty (15 page)

“End of the road,” says Cherif.

“We're not there yet.”

“There's nothing fucking here! You see a house or anything? No, just fields. We're going back to Paris.”

“Just a sec.” I open the door.

“Idir!”

I walk up to the gate, check there's no one around, and step over it.

I pass through a curtain of trees, sink into leaves the rain has reduced to a shapeless mush. The first few drops of sweat start prickling my forehead. After a bender, you tend to sweat more easily. I sponge off my face and keep walking straight ahead. Two minutes later, I see a stone cottage emerge from the trees about fifty yards away. I stop and crouch down, back against a trunk. My legs start trembling and my stomach contracts.

“Where are you?”

I hear Cherif's voice. He's just passed through the curtain of trees. I hiss at him and hold a finger up to my lips. He comes over silently. I whisper, “There's a cottage over there.”

“Where?”

I point left. He looks.

No sign of life around. The only window we can see on this side is tiny and too filthy to afford a glimpse through.

“I want to find out what's inside.”

He reaches behind him and pulls a gun from his waistband.

“I didn't like feeling naked in front of that ski-masked asshole with a gun last time. Go ahead, I'll cover you.”

Bent over, I run to the cottage and flatten myself against the wall right by the door.

I wave Cherif over. He takes up a position on the other side of the door. I signal one, two, three. He kicks the door right by the knob and it gives way.

It's empty. And dirty. One room with a mattress on the dirt floor, a Thermos, empty Coke bottles, a plastic baggie full of weed, and beer bottles turned into ashtrays, the necks whitened by cinder.

“Smells like your mom,” Cherif mutters.

I grimace. The shut-in smell, on top of stale tobacco and damp rot, is harder to take than Cherif's joke.

“See? Nothing here. Can we go now?”

We go.

“Wait.” I decide to walk around the cottage. Nothing except for a shovel against one wall.

“See? Not a damn thing.”

Absently, I grab the shovel.
Think, think
. There are too many threads all tangled up in my mind. I'm not smart enough to pick them all apart. It annoys me. I swing the shovel against the wall. Again and again, harder each time, until my arm muscles start burning. Like the
klong
the metal makes on stone might clear my head. The soil on the shovel comes off and splatters on the
limewash wall, a leech the color of clay, and—blood. I scratch at the muddy leavings. The dirt is red in places. I start running around the cottage, looking everywhere.

“Idir, you wanna tell me what's going on?”

“The shovel!”

“The shovel what?”

“I—I think there's blood on it.”

“You sure?”

“I think.”

“It could be anything, you know.”

But I'm already far afield. I'm walking without really knowing where I'm going, trudging in circles. Until, about thirty yards from the house, I find a pile of fresh earth.

“Cherif, bring the shovel.”

He hands it over. “What do you think is under there?”

I don't say anything, just start digging. They didn't do a very good job. The hole isn't very deep. A few shovelfuls later, I hit something. A man's hand comes out of the ground.

“Oh, fuck!”

I jump back. Cherif too.

“What the fuck is this?”

I keep digging. The smell becomes hard to take. A bloated belly shows next, crisscrossed with swollen veins, gleaming purplish streaks about to break through the translucent skin. Then a face. Hard to believe it was once alive, that it was once a man's. It looks like a mask, something out of a movie. Except I know this face. I've seen it before, in photos. Smiling.

“It's Thibaut,” I say.

“Who?”

“The kid I was looking for.”

“The fuck's he doing here?”

I take out my phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Calling the cops. You can go home, Cherif.”

Cherif puts a hand on my arm. “What are you, stupid? What are you going to tell them?”

“That I found this body by accident.”

“The fuck is a guy like you doing way the fuck out here? You're from the city. You've got no business out here in a field. Your prints are on the shovel and all over the place.

“What the fuck do you want me to do?”

He hands me the car keys. “Go to the car. Call your client and tell him the news. I'll clean up here and then we go home. As for the cops, we wait. It won't change anything. This guy is dead; he's not going anywhere. We'll see what happens after.”

I do as he says and walk back to the car in a daze. I stumble and fall, pick myself back up. I can't manage to throw up, though I want to. I stick two fingers down my throat to get the retching started. But all my empty belly turns up is some acid bile, which I swallow back down painfully.

I shut myself in the car, happy for a refuge far from the kid. I dial the number right away, so I don't have time to think twice. He picks up quick.

“Idir?”

“I have some news about your brother—”

He doesn't let me finish. His voice is full of hope. “You found him?”

“Yeah.”

“Well?”

“I don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it straight up: he's dead.”

I hear a swallowing sound, then silence.

“You still there?”

“Yes.”

“Let's meet. I don't like phone calls.” I hang up. Cherif comes back a few minutes later. He starts the car.

“What do you think?” he asks.

“I have no idea, Cherif. No idea.” I start hitting the dashboard again and again. “I don't fucking understand any of this bullshit!”

“Those two brothers must've done it. They're dead; justice is served. Doesn't happen often, so don't beat yourself up over it.”

“Why'd they kidnap him?”

“It's what they do.”

“Yeah, but why him?”

“His family's loaded. That not enough reason for you?”

“Cherif, you don't get it. I was asked to find the kid. I couldn't do it. Then some other guy asks me to find his car. And the guys who stole the car are also mixed up with the kid. One client's problem is bleeding into another client's bigger problem. Coincidence?” I shake my head. “No way. It just doesn't add up.”

“Those guys were degenerates. They're not out there planning for retirement. They kidnap people, OK? But then they saw the car, so they took it. Because they felt like it, the way you feel like you need to take a leak all of a sudden. They saw a shitload of money rolling by, and so fuck the consequences.”

“So why kill the kid, then? How'd they know his family was rich? It doesn't hold up.”

“Look, he's dead. It's sad, but that's how it is. Now they're dead, and they deserved what they got. For fuck's sake, let it go. Forget it!”

“What would they get out of killing him? Tell me that.”

“Maybe he just mouthed off to them, Idir, or they woke up one morning wondering what would happen if they killed him.
There's no fucking telling.”

I know something's wrong here, and I doubt I can figure it out. “Cherif, coincidence is for normal law-abiding citizens. You believe in coincidence in your line of work?”

“What now?”

“If some guy makes you steal a car and the next morning the cops kick in your door, you'd figure he'd turned you in, right?”

“Well, sure.”

“So you don't believe in coincidence.”

“No.”

“So we agree. It's all connected.”

I don't know why I insisted on seeing Oscar in person. As if it were going to change anything. But I need to know more because suddenly these families are connected.

Oscar greets me very solemnly, as if he has to keep his sadness from me. It hasn't hit him yet; he still hopes I'm wrong. Or at least that's what it seems like. “Are you sure it was him?”

“I think it's him.”

“You could've made a mistake?” he asks in a voice full of hope. I can't bring myself to contradict him.

“Yes. Anyone can make a mistake.”

“Where'd you find him?”

“Far from here. Out in the country.”

“Can you take me there? I'd know if it was him.”

“We're talking about a body, you know. I'd rather notify the police first. That'd be the straight thing to do. They can notify you after.”

“If that really is my brother out there, you'd be a key witness
in the trial.”

“Look, you paid me for my work, I did it. If you mention my name so much as once in the police investigation, I'll deny everything.”

He pauses only for a moment, like my reply doesn't really matter. “So it's him, huh?”

I swallow. “It's the same face as in the photo.”

He stifles a sob and lets out a little keening sound. “Sorry, sorry, I'm just a bit…shaken. You did good work though.”

“I'll call the police from a pay phone. Just an anonymous tip. The rest is out of my hands.”

“Thanks for everything.”

I give him a wave and head for the door. I can already see myself outside, taking in a big breath of fresh air. But his voice rings out behind me. “I know who the real culprit is, even if he'll never be caught.”

I turn around. He comes up to me and says, “And so do you. Eric Vernay.”

His voice has changed. I don't like it. I'm starting to feel like a mute extra in some scene of Oscar's devising. “I'm not covering for anyone. Not him, not you. Your affairs don't concern me.”

“Listen—I got my hands on lots of compromising documents related to his company. Enough to cause a scandal. A big one. I was counting on revealing the information. All of a sudden my brother disappears, and one day, I get a phone call. It was him. He was sobbing. I could hear voices behind him. He begged me to come get him, said he didn't want to die. And then—
click
.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

He gives me a disillusioned smile, the better to hide the tears welling up in his eyes. “Oh, I don't know—I didn't know if you
were still close to Vernay. I—I don't know.”

I begrudge him for not playing it straight with me, for not putting me in the know right from the start. I might've been able to save the kid.

“Why didn't you alert the police?”

“I was scared—for him.”

“You think Vernay's behind all this?”

“Who else?”

“You have proof?”

“Nothing. You have more proof than I do. In truth, you're the only one with any proof. And if I understood you correctly, you don't wish to testify.”

I can't meet his gaze. “I don't work for Eric, and I have nothing to do with his schemes.”

He hesitates, stares intently at me for a minute, scouring the depths of my soul. “I believe you—and I respect your decision.”

“It's my job. I can't get involved in all the rest. We had a contract, I held up my end. How doesn't matter. I swear I have no information about whoever did this. You'll have to take my word for it, because that's all I'll give you.”

Since the two brothers are dead, I figure the truth won't help anyone, just hurt him.

“I understand. Thanks for all your help, at any rate. Thanks for not giving up.”

“I'll call the police—about the location. Call them yourself after that and report your brother missing. It'll be some time before they identify the body. Good luck with all the rest.”

“I hope—I hope you were wrong. That it wasn't him.”

“Me too.”

I go home to give myself some room to think in peace. Later, I'll go find a pay phone and place the call. When I get my keys out on the landing, I hear footsteps behind me in the stairwell. I pay no attention and open my door. That's when a hand squeezes my shoulder with a bone-crushing grip and shoves me inside the apartment.