Queen of the Trailer Park (Rosie Maldonne's World Book 1) (12 page)

32

Jérôme was standing by the front desk, waiting for me, with two motorcycle helmets in his hands.

“I didn’t have time to check what movies are showing.”

“We can decide when we get there.”

I left instructions at the desk so that Mimi would be warmly welcomed when she arrived with the chickadees at nine, and I climbed onto the back of Jérôme’s bike as best I could.

I don’t know what make it was. I couldn’t give a damn. It was a huge black beast of a machine, and we looked like a couple of fools on it, for sure.

I hate wearing anything on my head. I can’t stand messing up a hairdo that took an age to style. I’m the type who uses all the latest gels and sprays. All that advanced technology in cosmetic hair care.

So I refused to wear my helmet. This pissed off Jérôme. He’s a cop. He’s supposed to set a good example. I spent five minutes telling him that it was precisely because he was a cop that he could do anything he pleased. But he wasn’t having any of it. He just wouldn’t admit that I was right. No big deal. He still didn’t get me to change my mind and had to set off anyway. He was angry. We were going to miss the start of the film.

He was right. We missed the first ten minutes of
The Score
, a deadly boring film with Robert De Niro and Marlon Brando about a robbery under the Montreal Customs House.

I don’t think I’d ever yawned so much in my life. Marlon Brando, with the mother of all face-lifts, can’t stand up for long these days, so they had him sit on his ass the entire film. Robert De Niro spent most of the film in a balaclava, robbing things.

They probably got the stars at a discount. Half the film was shot using doubles.

The young kid in the story, Edward Norton, was trying to pull one over on the old guys, but in the end, they got one over on him.

Moral of the story: when you’re young and enthusiastic, don’t think you’re cleverer than an old goat, even if he’s crusty looking, because he’ll fuck you over every time. I’d started out the evening with the Mamma and finished off with the padrone. Wheeling and dealing all around.

I explained this to Jérôme, who didn’t get the film at all. He’d only understood it on one level.

I was luckier. I’d repeated three years of high school. I’d been in film club for every one of those years. It was run by this rebel priest who provided amazing analyses of films. He made us realize we never got the point of a movie. We always understood the opposite of what they were getting at.

Now, whenever I catch a movie, I never take it at face value. It’s great. It means I get to see two films for the price of one.

Afterward, we left the theater and went next door to the Peking Express, a fast-food chain violently lit with neon lights.

I love Chinese food. Usually, I never order an entree but get lots of mini side orders, like spring rolls, deep-fried donuts, fortune cookies, and hakao and siumai, which are my two favorites. I finish up with teensy coconut cakes, eaten hot.

I gently managed to segue to what I wanted to talk about. This hot date of ours would give me the chance to do one thing if nothing else: take the investigation to where I thought it should be heading.

Of course, I was happy he’d invited me out. I didn’t get asked all that often.

But not everyone gets the chance to give a cop a good firsthand grilling.

The conversation turned to Pierre, but I had to push it there. I told Jérôme how I’d broken down earlier in the day at Sélect when I read the article in the paper.

Little by little, he too looked like it was all starting to get to be too much for him. After four glasses of wine, he began slipping me bits of information on the investigation.

I let him speak without interrupting. Every now and again, I made little noises of exclamation or a quick remark, just to punctuate his sentences.

This is a great technique. I can recommend it when you’re trying to get something out of someone. It requires good wine and the gift of gab. You have to go about it very carefully, though.

“At first, we suspected Djaïd of kidnapping him. Because, odd as it sounds, everything matched up. The boy’s mother gave us a description of a guy hanging around outside the bakery, and it matched the guy who’d been in the square where we’d found the rabbit and clothes folded up on the bench. A coincidence like that is rare, isn’t it? But now we’re thinking the mother lied.”

“Véro?”

“Yes. And that it was just a coincidence that what she said matched the guy in question. It happens. The poor fella. He’s not all there.”

“But why would she have lied?”

“I can’t really say, but some of the times don’t match up. She talked about different bakeries. There was a whole load of stuff. Plus, there are no witnesses to say they’d seen her in that neighborhood that morning. It’s all—”

“Weird. That doesn’t sound like Véro at all.”

33

I’d managed to get him talking, but at no point did I forget he was a cop.

I didn’t want the tables turned while I was thinking I could pull one over on the old guys, like in the film. Even though Jérôme was young.

Maybe he was acting like he was letting me in on all the details, but it was actually him getting me to do the talking. Could be, right?

So I instinctively kept my wits about me.

I was still wondering why Véro could have lied. “Listen up, Véro’s a real goody two-shoes. She’d cut off her own right arm for her kids.”

“Oh, really? Well, we did a bit of background search into her current boyfriend, and what we found . . . Well, he’s not all squeaky clean.”

“Really?”

“Yes. First off, that’s not his real name.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. His name is Luc Berger. He’s married to a woman who made an attempt on her own life.”

“He’s married?”

“Yep.”

“Oh, no. Poor Véro.”

“We knew something wasn’t quite right. He disappeared after his wife threw herself out of the window.”

“Did she die?”

“No.”

“Do you think he . . . ?” I gestured a pushing motion.

“Well . . .”

“He was with Pierre all Monday morning. On his own with him.”

“Did you tell Borelli that?”

“He never asked.”

“I’ll let him know. Maybe it’ll lead to something. He could be the last person to have seen the little kid alive. And how do you know this?”

“Véro told me when I saw her on Monday. And what about Michel?”

I shuddered when I said his name. This time, when I thought of him, he was a skeleton, spread out across the floor of my trailer. A bag of maggots.

“It’s the same deal with him. We can’t get ahold of him. He isn’t at home. We found his fingerprints when we went over to Véro’s place. But we don’t know how old they are. After all, he had to be there at some point, didn’t he?”

“Sure. That day when he cut up her sofa.”

“Oh, yes. I saw that.”

“Poor Véro. That girl never really stood a chance. It’s crazy. She and Mimi are my best friends, and the pair of them run up nothing but bad luck. Mimi never really shows how unhappy she is. She’s always opening her big mouth, always laughing. But Véro? Poor thing. She never gets a break. And now she can’t find Pierre. How’s she going to get over it? She won’t. It’s awful. There’s Simon too—and he doesn’t have the first clue what’s going on.”

“How did you meet her?”

“She had a temporary contract at the preschool where I was doing a work placement after I left school. She had a hard time finding a full-time job. She did a little bit of everything: care work, cooking, nursery nurse, cleaning, secretarial work. It was great when she was a secretary. She worked for a big attorney. Classy stuff. But he got all sleazy with her one day after work, and she couldn’t go back after that. A lawyer who liked chasing ass as much as ambulances. It’s a pity. She really loved being in charge of the waiting room. She saw all sorts of guys from the Mamma there—”

“The Mamma?”

“Uh, sorry, tongue slipped. I mean the Mafia. Russian Mafia. This attorney guy was a big deal in finance law.”

“I don’t see the connection.”

“You’re a cop. Work it out, Jérô.” I paused. “Sorry. That just came out.”

“I don’t mind you calling me Jérô.”

“It’s a bit early in the game, maybe.”

I didn’t want him thinking he had it in the bag. I didn’t want to be overly familiar with him. Even though flashbacks to last night’s dream were paralyzing my brain.

“Why is your face burning up, Mr. Gallo?”

I couldn’t do it. “Mr. Gallo” felt too weird. It seemed I was going to call him Jérô from then on. Or Jérôme at the very least. To hell with it.

34

I could tell he liked me using his first name. I didn’t say anything, because I still wanted info. Also, I had to admit, I liked it too.

“What does the law have to say about this bribery business?”

“Bribery?”

“The Mafia wants to build a casino, as you know, and it turns out they’ve been slipping money to certain people down at city hall. City hall had already passed a vote on the budget for a library to be built.”

He finished off his Coke in a single gulp, choked, and coughed.

“I don’t know why I did that,” he said, “I can’t stand bubbles.” He cleared his throat and asked, “How do you know all this?”

“It’s the only thing anyone’s talking about downtown.”

“It’s just idle gossip. We’re up against it with city hall, there’s always some quarrel or other going down, so . . .”

“So what?”

I had a feeling he was going to say something annoying.

“I keep my eyes closed.”

I swallowed the last of my coffee and ordered two double espressos.

“We close our eyes when it comes to certain things. Especially when it’s just rumors. We don’t know the real story. And sometimes we need those guys.”

“I see.”

I waited for my coffees, a heavy silence surrounding us.

Just like that, a cop had told me that if he hears about something that bothers him, he closes his eyes to it. And we’re supposed to feel safe? It’s insane. I had no thoughts other than to get the hell out of there. I couldn’t stand the sight of his simpering mush a second longer.

I downed my two espressos without even getting the chance to taste them.

“Let’s go. It’s midnight, and Mimi’s waiting in my room.”

Back on the bike.

He didn’t take the normal route to the hotel. It was impossible to talk to him with his helmet on. He couldn’t hear a word. Or he was pretending not to. He stopped in front of an apartment block. A 1980s build with a balcony on every floor.

“This is where I live. Do you want to come up for a nightcap?”

This made me stomping mad.

“What do you take me for? Did you think little Cricri must be used to it? A movie and dinner . . . and I’m off, home and dry?”

“But . . . No! Not at all . . . I just wanted to show you where I live, that’s all. So we could chat in a . . . less public place.”

“Give me a break. Take me home, or I’ll just walk back to the hotel.”

“You’re feisty, but you’re full of misconceptions, you know that? And you’re chicken.”

This was a cop who was cleverer than he made out, because this time, he had me. It worked. He’d struck a nerve, and I followed him.

He made me a tisane. It was the only thing I’d drink.

It’s something my mom and I would often have together. My mother knew about all sorts of plants that were perfect for tisanes. Jérôme had a pot of thyme in his kitchen. He’d gone hiking in Mercantour and brought some back. I couldn’t believe it. It was illegal to pick anything from around there.

“The drink’s awesome. It’s probably radioactive, but it tastes wonderful.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You know . . . Chernobyl and all that.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you know anything about anything? You never read anything, you never watch TV, is that it?”

“That’s it. I never read anything and I never watch TV. Apart from soccer.”

“What do you do when you’re not working?”

“I do sports. I go to the gym.”

“That’s all?”

“Yep. I hadn’t been to the movies in three years before tonight.”

“I can’t believe it. Well, listen up: back in the eighties, just after it all happened, the Chernobyl cloud passed over Mercantour. There’s an incredibly high rate of radioactivity in all the plants in that area.”

“You sure do know your stuff.”

He was making fun of me, but I pretended not to notice. I didn’t want to play his game. I had to stay on my guard and lie in wait for the moment he was going to try and get his hooks into me. I was disappointed. It seemed to be taking ages for him to make his move. Shit. What was taking him so long? When was he going to hit on me? Did he like me or what?

“I keep myself informed. I’m no couch potato.”

He exploded with laughter, then asked me, half-jokingly, “What are you thinking about right now?”

“Nothing,” I replied.

“Do you want me to tell you what you’re thinking?”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re wondering when I’m going to kiss you. Or maybe, why I asked you up here if I wasn’t even going to bother coming on to you.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yeah, that’s what I think. Because you don’t trust anyone. And you didn’t believe me before when I said I just wanted us to get to know each other better, that we should have a chat somewhere a little more intimate than the movie theater or the restaurant.”

“So I should have trusted you, is that it?”

“No. You were right. I really wanted to kiss you with no one else around. But now, I want to prove to you that you shouldn’t have been so suspicious and that you can trust me. This means I can’t hit on you, even though I want to. So, when you’re ready, we’ll go home. I mean, I’ll take you back to your place.”

“You’re a complex guy. Nobody would think so, looking at you.”

“I know. I look like a hardass, don’t I? But it doesn’t mean things aren’t going on inside my head.”

“Like what, for example?”

“Like, how you’re a girl who lives on the outskirts of society . . . and the fact that I don’t get how, now, you’re able to pay for a room at the Hôtel de Provence.”

“Well, you know all about that. My uncle—”

“Your ‘uncle’ my ass!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means tons of stuff. First of all, I don’t believe your uncle is your uncle. From that, I’ve come up with two interesting hypotheses. Either this guy is really paying for your hotel, and not only the hotel. Draw what conclusions you like from that. Or . . .”

“Go ahead. Spit it out. I won the lottery, is that it?”

He fixed his eyes on me, shaking his head in disappointment.

“No, that’s enough. I’m taking you home.”