Eyes Full of Empty (8 page)

Cherif kicks him again. “You fucking killed him, you son of a bitch!”

“I didn't do anything! Stop! Please!”

Cherif leans over Julien, pulls his boxers off and stuffs them in his mouth. I watch Julien on the ground, powerless, tears in his eyes, cock all shriveled up, purple from the beating.

“So that's how it is? Playing dumb? What did you do to him? You're a filthy pedophile, aren't you?”

Cherif pins Julien's legs, then takes a lighter from his pocket and starts moving the flame closer to Julien's crotch. He starts singeing hairs. Julien is choking on his own screams, mouth full of underwear. It's time I got up.

“Goddammit, stop,” I mutter.

Cherif turns and looks at me in disbelief, like he's forgotten I'm there. He pulls the boxers from Julien's mouth and lets him speak.

“All I did was take him to the club! The rest was an accident. I never thought things would get so out of hand. I don't know what came over me. I was too high. I told him I was sorry.” Tears are streaming from his eyes. His sobs are like the spasms of an epileptic midseizure.

“You were afraid he'd sue, so you killed him.”

“No, no, I swear! I never saw him again after that!”

“If he'd killed him, he'd have confessed,” Cherif says.

“Why'd you do it?” I ask Julien, who no longer looks anything like a torturer, just a terrified and harmless little douchebag.

“I knew he was a fag. Pretending all the time—I wanted him to know what he was, teach him a lesson.”

I spit on him, a compact bloody gob. “And that's why you took him there?”

“It wasn't that bad. After all, it was what he liked.”

I kick him right in the head. “How about that? You like that? Son of a bitch!”

I feel a pair of arms pull me back and my feet come off the ground. Cherif holds me there till I run of out oxygen. He lets me go. No way I'm catching my breath.

Cherif undoes the handcuffs and frees Julien. He grabs a
handful of Julien's hair. “We never came here, OK? You tell the cops, you press charges, I'll make your life a living hell. I know where you live. I'll find out where your parents live. Forget this ever happened, buddy.”

Julien nods frantically, terrified.

“C'mon, let's get out of here.” Cherif drags me out of the apartment. I feel like planes are taking off in my skull without permission from flight control.

The stairs don't make things better. If Cherif's arm hadn't been around my waist, I'd have sat down on the landing and stayed there bleeding on the doormat, waiting for it all to go away.

The street is deserted.

“I'm OK, you can let go.” I regain my balance a bit. Wipe the blood off my forehead with my jacket sleeve. Fuck.

“C'mon, get in,” he says, indicating a double-parked 4x4 with its hazards on.

I get in the passenger seat. The car starts. I know he's pissed off, and I'm better off keeping my mouth shut. But I need to know.

“Why'd you do that?”

“Why?” he shouts. “Because you didn't have the balls to! You should be fucking thanking me! You lucked out. I was having dinner with a chick nearby. If I hadn't shown up, who knows what he would've done to you! Did you see his eyes? Fucker was on vacation! Who knows how far he would've gone! Fuck me!”

He slaps the back of my head, sending a few more drops of blood onto the seat and the floor mat. He brakes violently.

“Get out of my ride. Get the fuck out!”

Slowly, I comply. The car tears off. I try to buck up. Where the fuck am I? I feel my skull. I really need to get sewn up.

I recognize the huge wrought-iron door, the surveillance camera above. With the migraine I have, it's a miracle I remember the security code. Luckily he lives on the second floor; I couldn't have made it up much farther. I knock. From inside, worried footfalls.

“Nadia, please, open up.”

“Idir? It's three
A.M
.”

“I know, I know…Can I come in?”

My father's significant other opens the door. She's wearing a white nightie and doesn't look very happy to see me. “Idir! You're bleeding!”

“Is Dad around?”

“Good God, what happened to you?”

“Oh nothing, I just fell. Can you get my dad, please?”

She opens the door and lets me in. One last look of dismay, and then she says, “All right. I'll get him.”

Despite the pain, I catch myself checking out her ass as she heads down the hall. Soon my father shows up in his pajamas. He shakes his head at the sight of me. I smile, happy to see him. He doesn't look so happy though. On the living room sofa, he examines my scalp, his tiny glasses at the tip of his nose. “You'll need four sutures, maybe five.”

“OK. I trust you. You're the doctor.”

“I'll get my supplies. I'll be back.” He returns with a needle, thread, scissors, rubbing alcohol, and a bowlful of water. He cuts my hair from around the wound and starts sewing me up. “You should've learned to do this. At least it's something I could've taught you that would've been of some use to you.”

“I should've—”

“There are lots of things you should've done. Like not get mixed up in this kind of business.”

“It's my job. It happens, is all.”

“And what exactly is your job?”

“Dad, drop it.”

“What do you want me to do? Feel sorry for you?”

“I don't want anything at all.”

“Then why are you here?”

“To get stitched up.”

“So you do want something.”

“You're nicer than the internist at Lariboisière.”

“Hold still, I'm almost done. All right.” He ties a knot and snips the thread. He gets up; I stay seated.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“You're welcome.” He takes off his glasses and holds them in his hand. “You can go now.”

“Everything else good?”

He smiles sadly. “Idir, in three hours I'm getting up to go to work. You don't have to pretend with me.”

“What?”

“You know, Idir, I couldn't care less about your life. You're way past thirty and still running home to daddy when you get beat up. Fifteen years ago, it was the same story. Back then, I'd tell you not to get into fights. You were a child. But now you're a grown man. You can do whatever you want with your life. I'm not footing the bill anymore.”

“Sorry I woke you up. Thanks for the stitches.” I leave the large apartment and smash my fist in rage against the glass cage of the elevator.

CHAPTER 4

I
N BED, EYES OPEN
. T
HE PILLOW STUCK TO MY SKULL WITH
coagulated blood. My first headache of the week that isn't from alcohol and a rotten mood.

In the bathroom, I shave my head, first with clippers, then a razor to even out the cut and not have patches. My hair was going already, so it's not that bad. I take care not to get too close to my wound. Once I'm done, I reflect that it may not have been the best idea. A bare skull striped by a purple-red gash—not in very good taste. I foresee a week of getting stopped by the cops and not getting laid. Not that my sex life is exactly thriving anyway, but with my gouged-up head, I'm absolutely sure I won't touch a woman any time soon.

A shower rinses morning sweat and rancid odors from my body.

Once I'm dressed, I have a coffee in the living room. My gaze falls on the tapes piled up on the table. Haven't the courage to given them a listen. I'm not sure I'm on the right track anymore anyway. I need help. I grab my phone. She picks up right away.

“Hey, Idir, how's it going?”

“Never better. You?”

“OK.”

“I'm calling 'cause I need some help. I'm looking for a kid. He left some taped confessions—might take a specialist to analyze. I need an outside opinion, and since everyone I know is kind of shady—”

She cuts me off. “You're asking me for help?”

“Think of it more like an invite to play amateur detective. Can you come over? I'm not going anywhere.”

“I've got some things to do, but I'll drop by when I'm done, say early evening?”

“Thanks. See you then.” I hang up. I knew she'd say yes.

Nat shows up around seven. When she rings up, I suddenly realize I'm nervous—just the idea of being alone with her in my little apartment.

“I didn't tell you everything on the phone,” I admit. “The guy I'm looking for is Crumley's brother. I know there was…something going on with you two, so if you're not comfortable listening to this, it's completely understandable.”

She looks at me like it's all the most normal thing in the world. “I'm fine with it.”

“Good. To make it quick, the kid's twenty-two, gay, surrounded by assholes, and afraid to come out. He's very intelligent, clear-eyed about the crowd he runs with. I'm guessing he isn't like most people of his generation. He didn't record this to be heard; he did it for himself, hiding it on old Memorex. He rarely mentions names, places—I don't know much. Except that he was sexually assaulted in a nightclub by someone he knew. I found the guy, a first-rate son of a bitch, but he's got nothing to do with the disappearance. I think the kid ran away, alone or with someone, but I'm not sure of anything.” She listens attentively. I finish up. “So I need your opinion, any kind of clue I might've skipped over, anything that could shed some light on where he is, who with—”

She cuts me off with a determined air. “OK, I'm ready.”

Soon enough we're on the sofa, sharing my old pair of headphones like teenagers. A quick shiver right when I slip the tape into the Walkman, and I feel her breath, a whisper on my skin. The wheels start turning. I watch the gadget in my hands before hearing that now-familiar voice:

       
I'd done it before. My brother made me, to prove I was a man. He was the only one who hated me back then; now I hate him too. I was fifteen. He made me come to where the girl was waiting, served up on a platter. He told me to go to it. He was naked. I could sense a sort of unwholesome arousal at the sight of me doing it, the sight of me naked. They were both chuckling as I tried to finish as fast as I could. But I couldn't. I cried; their laughter became shouting. The girl pushed me out of her—my brother took over and told me to watch carefully. I ran away—they were still laughing. I still don't know why I wanted to do it again, just what I wanted to prove. It's proof I haven't managed to get rid of everything they put in my head. Every step forward counts. Next time, I'll forget everything and move on without thinking of them, just myself. Me, me, me. It's not the best solution, but I don't have a choice anymore. If I want to stop suffering…

I sneak a quick glance at Nathalie, who swallows discreetly.

       
. . . I'm not going to put up with this all my life. I'm going to get away from here. With him, if he wants to. He didn't interest me before. But he noticed how anxious I felt after I was assaulted. He didn't push it with me; he wasn't one of those people hooked on good works, who note down in their ledgers every hand they've ever reached out to someone. He was just there, ready
to talk when I wanted to, quiet the rest of the time. It counted for a lot in my recovery
.

The tape goes on. She listened attentively. I watched her, obeying when she asked me to rewind, my fingers running over the Walkman's fat plastic buttons.

“What are you doing?”

I'd just pressed stop. “Aren't you hungry? I'll make us something to eat, help us see straighter.”

She gets up from the sofa and stretches, still muzzy from listening.

“Want a beer?” I ask.

“I think I need one.”

“Follow me.”

She joins me in the kitchen. I hand over a can and start putting together a rudimentary meal.

“I didn't even know Oscar had a brother. He never mentioned him.”

“He doesn't seem to have liked him much,” I reply. I turn my back to her; it's probably easier to ask her questions that way. “Was Oscar already like that back then?”

No answer. I can tell I've made her uncomfortable. “I mean—”

“Idir, do you want to know if I was the girl in the tape, the one he forced his brother to fuck? No, it wasn't me.”

“Sorry.”

“No harm done. If you want to know, the only thing I remember from back then was dealing with a guy so high he usually had a hard time getting it up. As for his perverted side, I never saw it. He was an asshole, but so were lots of other guys. I'm not going to rewrite history now that I've heard that.”

We eat in silence, wrapped up in our thoughts, still prisoners
of ghostly reels of tape. When I clear the plates, I'm surprised to find her already on the sofa, earphones on, in a hurry to start listening again.

New cassette:

       
I went to see Dad at the hospital today—he's in a bad way. It pained me, seeing him like that; he was always so active, always explaining what it was to be a man, never understanding that you can't change the way you are and that people who give lessons and pointers are more ridiculous than anything. I still found him ridiculous, dead inside, in a dressing gown, a terrible smell coming off his skin. Decay. I felt sorry for him, the way you feel for a guy who got it wrong, spent his life prospecting for gold without finding a nugget. My mother cried. That didn't surprise me. She's vanished into her role. She saved me, made me with him, so I wouldn't want for anything. Despite everything, I respect that sacrifice. She finally kissed him. She forced herself for nothing. I'm not even sure he recognized us
.

I stop the tape and look at Nat. “That's enough for tonight; I don't want to take up too much of your time. Thanks for the help. I've got a meeting with Oscar tomorrow.”

She takes off the headphones, almost disappointed. “And what are you going to tell him?”

“What I think. That Thibaut ran away, and he'll be back.”

She's looking off, her gaze lost in the distance.

“You're not convinced.”

She replies hesitantly. “No, yes, I mean—I don't know. I'm tempted to say yes, but at the same time…” She stops for a moment, looks at me. “Can I borrow these? I'll give them another listen at home and give you an official opinion.”

I don't remember her ever asking me for anything. Good thing too, because I wouldn't have said no a lot. She leaves with all the tapes, and I'm all alone again in my apartment.

The same café as last time. He's already there, looking anxiously around. He gets up to greet me, his eyes full of hope.

“Any news?” he asks before I have a chance to sit down.

“To be honest, no—nothing concrete.”

“Then why'd you drag me here?” he retorts curtly.

“Look, I'm going to be honest with you. I think your brother ran away. He left to get away from it all for a while. But he'll be back. In a few weeks, a few months. But it won't be more than a year.”

“How can you be sure?”

“You know your brother was gay?”

“I suspected. So what? It's his life.”

That's right, asshole, pretend to be tolerant
.

“Of course,” I reply innocently, “but I don't think it was well regarded in his crowd. If you ask me, he left Paris so he could live freely. I don't know him, but I promise you your brother's worth more than that shit-heap he calls his social circle. I think he just needed a change of scene for a while.” I decide not to tell him about the rape. It wouldn't do any good. “So there's no need to pay me. The expenses stop here. I won't find anything else. Just be patient, Thibaut will be back.”

He remains pensive for a moment, then picks up again like our conversation never happened. “I'd like you to keep looking.”

“I just told you, it won't do any good.”

“I'll pay you more.”

“I won't find anything else.”

He looks at me, wild-eyed. I try to explain; I don't know why he's insisting, especially for someone he most likely despises in private.

“Look, I'm not the kind of guy who takes money for something when I'm sure I won't get any results.”

“Fine, OK, I understand. I'll give you what I owe you.” He pulls a wad of money out of his wallet. Small bills only—he actually made an effort. I count them again and pocket them.

“Thanks anyway,” he says with apparent sincerity. “For everything.”

“You're welcome. I'll call you if I happen to learn anything new.”

I get up.

“It'll be OK. He'll be back,” I say, patting him on the shoulder.

I walk off, leaving him alone. I never thought someday I'd feel bad for that guy. The sight of him looking so lost momentarily weakens the hatred I've stewed in for years where he's concerned.

I go home and lie down on the couch. The meeting has exhausted me. I put a movie on.
Pickup on South Street
. Sam Fuller. Widmark's barely pilfered the wallet on the subway when I fall asleep. When I wake up, the end credits are rolling. I check my phone and see a message from another thief—a car thief this time—in my voice mail. Cherif asks me to call him back.

“Hello, Cherif?”

“Yeah.”

“Look, about last time, I—”

“Yeah, yeah, fuck it. I—”

“No, seriously. I'm sorry.”

“I said fuck it! You gonna let me talk now? Some guy spotted your car.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“You the man!”

“Meet me in twenty near Saint-Blaise; we'll go together.”

I find Cherif on his phone, leaning against his car.

“Well?”

“This guy in Bagnolet wants a chat with us. Got money?”

“Money?”

“For the guy.”

“Uh, no?”

Cherif shakes his head. “You're a real dipshit.”

After Cherif agrees to spot me the cash, we drive to the Bagnolet projects—two gray buildings a few stories high. Cherif makes a call. “Yeah, I'm down here. Yeah, the black Touareg.”

Two minutes later, a young black guy, eighteen at the most, gets in the backseat.

“I'm listening,” Cherif says, staring into the rearview.

“I want to see the money first.”

Cherif snaps around and looks him in the eye. I turn around too. The kid's nervous, looks down at his shoes.

“Listen up, Mr. Big: you'll get your money, you have my word,” Cherif says. “Now talk.”