First Blood (8 page)

Larusso’s whole face began twitching. He took off his glasses with an exaggerated gesture and wiped them off. “Classic drug-gang payback,” he said. “We’re not going to be here all night. It’s for the local precinct, not the Criminal Investigation Division. Now get out of here, you two.”

There was nothing Eva and Leroy could do. They left as Deputy Chief Adam gave them a mocking look.

“I can’t believe it,” Leroy said in the hallway. “What an asshole.”

“You can’t win every time,” said Eva, who was just as displeased. “It’s his call. You know we don’t have a say.”

They stopped on the landing. A member of the CSI team was there, illuminating the hallway with his flashlight.

“Be careful,” he said. “This wall could collapse.”

They thanked him and stepped along the hallway carefully. Eva looked at the darkened mass at the end of the hall, where the ceiling had fallen in. The door of the other apartment stood open like an invitation.

It would be hard to get in but not impossible.

Eva lifted her flashlight and said, “Constantin owns that apartment too, right?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s go take a look.”

Eva and Leroy walked down the hallway to the other apartment. As they stepped in, a chunk of burned wood fell from the frame and came apart in a dark, dusty cloud. They both flattened their masks against their faces.

“Do you really want to go in there?” Leroy asked.

“I doubt Adam’s team will,” Eva answered.

In the first room, there were skeletons of furniture and the remains of a flat-screen television.

“Do you think he lived in this one or in the other?”

“How do you expect me to know?” Leroy asked.

“In any case, this place was empty. If anyone had been here, they would have heard the screams next door. Listen.”

They could hear the pathologist talking with the guys from the drug squad in the first apartment. She was telling them about a missing organ: the heart. That was it. They had stolen Constantin’s heart. Larusso interrupted. The missing heart wasn’t anything significant, he said. And he did not intend to stay much longer, because he had to get up early in the morning.

“Damned idiot,” Eva mumbled.

Leroy nodded, swept his eyes across the darkened walls, and stepped around the charred remains of a bed. Then the two of them moved on to the final room. The same flaming hell had destroyed everything here, as well, even part of the exterior wall. A freezing wind struck them.

“There’s nothing here.”

“You’re right.”

They were on their way out, when Eva stopped to look at a door that was propped at a forty-five degree angle against the wall.

Leroy stopped, too. “What do you see?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet,” she said. “In any case, this door is not like the others. It didn’t burn.”

Leroy took a closer look. The door, which was now black with soot, had come off its hinges and had slid partway down the burning wall. But it was still intact.

Eva put her foot on it. The door slid all the way to the floor, creating a powdery cloud.

“An armored door. The wall burned, but it didn’t.”

She raised her flashlight, illuminating a tiny room where flakes of ashes danced.

“What do you think it was protecting?”

She stepped into the shadowy room. Despite the mask, her throat was on fire. Her eyes were burning, too. She closed them for a minute to let them water.

“It looks empty, except for this.” Leroy said, pointing to a large rectangular shape.

“That looks like a freezer, don’t you think?”

Leroy nodded.

“In a room behind an armored door?”

Eva smiled behind her mask. “Maybe he stored his merchandise here?”

With her hand still in its latex glove, she pulled on the handle. The appliance refused to open.

“Shit.”

“Wait.” Leroy put his flashlight in his belt and came in to help. Surrounded by shadows and asphyxiating ashes, they looked like two explorers in a forgotten temple. What was Ismael Constantin’s hidden treasure?

They pulled together. The freezer started to creak.

“It’s coming,” Erwan said, straining. “Just a little more.”

The top came off with a combined crackling and sucking sound. They pushed it up and off to the side. Inside the freezer, the ice had melted. It was now a sickening puddle of water.

There were no drugs in this hiding place.

It was worse.

Leroy paled and stepped back. “Dammit. That’s not what I think it is, is it?”

Eva stood there. She was paralyzed. She couldn’t swallow.

“It’s a baby.”

The corpse at the bottom of the freezer could not have been older than six months. The child was black and had been frozen and stored in this room. For how long?

Eva leaned over, shining the flashlight at the baby’s head. Next to the body, she saw a plastic bag. It contained a red and gold rectangular object.

“We need to let the pathologist know,” she said, her voice trembling.

Leroy left, without saying a word. He made his way out of the devastated apartment, while she examined the small form and the wound in its neck. The person who had slit the throat had nearly cut the baby’s head off.

Eva was glad she was alone.

No one would see the tears in her ruby-colored eyes.

Dreams are places of lucidity, Jonathan. Much more than we dare to admit.

It is the first day of class.

They are undergraduates.

Enormous speakers amplify the professor’s very high, nearly comical voice. The lecture hall is overheated, even though it is only the beginning of October. Nearly two hundred students are squeezed elbow to elbow into the tiers of the room. Their faces are young, attentive, and shy as they glance around the room. They look either curious or lost. They dig through their bags and crumple papers. There is murmuring, chatting. A girl in the first row coughs. She already has the loose cough of a long-time smoker. Pens scribble, like an army of roaches marching.

Those who failed last year stand out with their practiced air of detachment and the dirty jokes they shout at each other across the room. It is Greek mythology, with Mr. Parme. For twenty minutes he has been droning on in his unbearably high voice, providing the same information that is in the book he wrote.

His voice does go with his body. He is as thin as an ascetic, with his sparse gray hair tied in a ponytail. Mr. Parme has a unique sense of style and wears a bright red jacket despite the overwhelming heat. The flashy red looks like a stain of jam on his porcelain-colored shirt. Madeleine thinks he resembles a declining actor or a dance hall singer. He just needs a retro microphone and a scarlet backdrop.

Madeleine hears almost nothing of the professor’s lecture. It is her first day, and she is taking in all the details around her. She is fresh from her countryside home. In other words, she is finally free. The frontier ahead of her is virgin and exhilarating. She would listen to Mr. Parme’s annoying voice another day.

For now, she is more interested in her classmates and how improbable the people around her look. Some have dreadlocks, while others have punk Mohawks. Some students from the provinces are wearing gray suits. She never saw so many different kinds of people in her native Aveyron, where dying your hair red was an extreme act of rebellion. Never has she been in such a mixed crowd and seen such diversity.

She glances at the pimply-faced boy in the Star Wars T-shirt a few rows in front of her. One row down, there are two bleached-blond girls, one wearing a bright-green sweater, the other a canary-yellow jacket with shoulder pads. They are chattering loudly like energized birds. A neighbor asks them to quiet down. The two blonds insult her. Finally, the complainer gives up and moves away. The two girls fascinate Madeleine. They are so self-assured, so happy and inconsiderate, character traits she thinks she will never have.

But that is not the most interesting thing. No, not at all.

Madeleine has spotted a boy she likes—a lot.

He is sitting in the middle of the lecture hall. He is tall, slender, and magnificent. His skin is a coppery black that contrasts with the aspirin-colored pallor of the heavyset red-haired girl next to him. She is spilling out of a pink T-shirt that is a few sizes too small. She has been fanning herself since the beginning of the class.

The boy’s braids are tied together and hanging down a T-shirt covering his muscular back. He does not seem to be listening to the teacher either. He is not taking notes, but is instead engrossed in a thick book.

Madeleine wrinkles her nose and coughs. The odor of pot floats in the air. That idiot with the Star Wars T-shirt has lit up a joint. The students around him both chuckle and complain, but nobody can keep him from smoking. The professor keeps cheeping over the microphone as if nothing is going on. He is explaining how serious work is important in his class. He is expecting everyone to attend regularly.

The boy with the braids continues to read his book.

And the bell rings. Finally. It is the end of her first mythology class, which she hasn’t listened to. The students get up in joyful chaos and follow each other down the stairs in an animated flow. They leave the lecture hall through the doors on either side of the room.

Madeleine also gathers her things but takes her time. While the others make their way around her, she arranges her books neatly in her bag and closes her pencil case. Then she snaps her bag closed and swings the strap over her shoulder.

She stands up, her eyes on the boy.

She wants to know where he is going. Would he be going to the cafeteria, where so many students head at the end of the day? Or would he go to the library, to another class, or maybe even home?

He does not do any of those things.

He remains seated in the middle of the lecture hall, his nose in his book. The curve of his bicep bulges when he turns the pages.

The fat, sweaty red-haired girl is yelling that he is in the way. She needs to get past him. He sighs but does not bother to look at her. He is absorbed in his book and moving his lips ever so slightly. Perhaps he is reading out loud. An errant braid slips over his shoulder and falls in front of his eyes. He pushes it behind his ear and continues to murmur. Madeleine examines his slender, elegant hands.

Now. She slowly steps down the stairs, approaching him, preparing herself mentally.

She feels something move in the air. For a second or two, she even has the impression that a kind of veil has descended on the desks. It is like a spider web sticking to the surfaces all over the lecture hall. She thinks she must have something in her eye. A speck of dust.

She blinks. The illusion dissipates.

Then a shrill cry rises up.

Madeleine looks down. The fat girl has slipped on the last step and twisted her ankle. The contents of her bag are spread out in front of her, and she is screaming like a pig with a slit throat. Her screeching draws a crowd of helpful students, who rush to her aid. She insults them copiously when they try to help her up, and she begins yelling again.

The young man, sitting in his seat in the middle of the lecture hall, smiles ever so slightly. It is hardly more than a quiver on his lips. Madeleine smiles too. It is pure meanness, but she cannot help herself. Once again, she takes in the boy’s chiseled features, his soft braids that shine in the half-light of the room. She has an idea.

“Are you planning to stay here?” she asks as she approaches him.

Contact is made. He looks up. He has very pale eyes that contrast with his black skin; his arms look like forging rivers of ink. He’s something out of a graphic novel, and he is very dangerous. Madeleine has no idea why such an idea has crossed her mind, and she chases it away. He is handsome, school is starting, and she does not know anyone here yet. Those are the only things that matter.

She wants to be the first person to know him.

He nods. “The room is free. I looked at the schedule. There are no more classes here today.”

Madeleine bats her eyes and tilts her head.

“What are you reading?”

The boy closes the book so she can see the cover. It has a black-and-white photo of a man with a guru’s face and a swastika on his forehead. The title spreads out in thick red letters: Rape and Ritual Cannibalism Among Serial Killers.

She wavers ever so slightly. This is not what she was expecting. But he certainly does not seem to be boring, like the other boys she has known. He looks at her and smiles. His eyes have a metallic gleam. Madeleine chuckles as she gathers her wits.

“You’ve got an intriguing taste in literature.”

“I’m fascinated by the topic.”

His voice is warm and powerful. It is the voice of a leader, the chief of a clan. He shows his very white teeth. His braids seem to have a life of their own when he moves his head.

“Rape or cannibalism?” Madeleine asks, deciding not to appear too impressed.

He laughs.

“No. Rituals, that’s all.”

“That’s reassuring,” Madeleine says.

“You know, all those killers you find in books and on television think they are better than everyone else because they are getting a little attention, but they’re just losers. Like the guy they put on this cover.”

He points to the swastika on the man’s forehead.

“His name is Charles Manson,” he says.

“I’ve heard of him,” Madeleine says. “He’s famous, isn’t he?”

“Like a rock star. Members of his gang killed Sharon Tate, the movie director Roman Polanski’s wife, and the story was all over the news. But the freaks who did it were washouts, nothing but easily swayed failures. Manson was a disturbed kid who wanted to take revenge on society because it had rejected him. Now he is in prison, and what did he get? What did he accomplish? Nothing. He wasn’t even the one who committed the crimes; his followers did. He is nothing now. He never deserved any attention.”