Solea (24 page)

 

I sailed slowly around the outside of the island, trying to spot either Babette or the killers. The white moonlight made the rocky ground look like a lunar landscape. These islands had never looked so grim.

I thought again about what Hélène Pessayre had said this morning on the phone. “Each of us playing our own game.” She'd played hers and lost. I was playing mine, and I was losing too. “That's what you wanted, isn't it?” Had I screwed up again? Would we even be here if . . .

I saw Babette. She was climbing down a narrow, rocky gully.

I took the boat in closer. Keeping to the middle of the creek.

Call her, now. No, not yet. Let her come down. Let her get to the bottom of the creek.

I moved in a little closer, then cut the motor and glided slowly over the water, which was still quite deep. I picked up the oars and moved even closer.

Babette appeared on the narrow sandbank.

“Babette!” I called.

But she didn't hear me. She was looking up at the rocks. I thought I could hear her panting in fear. Panic. But it wasn't her, it was only my heart, pounding. Like a time bomb. Calm down, dammit! I told myself. You're going to explode!

Calm down! Calm down.

“Babette!” I cried.

She turned and saw me at last. And understood. At the same moment, the guy appeared. What he was holding wasn't just a pistol.

“Hide!” I yelled.

There was a volley of shots, covering my voice. Then more volleys. Babette got up, as if about to dive, then fell again. Into the water. The shooting stopped abruptly and I saw the killer turn and run. His submachine gun tumbled down onto the loose stones. Then, suddenly, there was silence. A moment later, his body crashed onto the rocks below. The impact of his skull on the rocks echoed through the creek.

Beraud's aim had been good.

I rowed like crazy until I felt the hull hit the rocks. I jumped out of the boat. Babette's body was still in the water. Motionless. I tried to lift it. It felt like lead.

“Babette,” I wept. “Babette.”

I gently pulled Babette's body toward the sand. There were eight bullet holes in her back. Slowly, I turned her over.

Babette. I lay down beside her.

The face I'd loved. Looking the same as ever. As beautiful as ever. The way Botticelli had dreamed it one night. The way he'd painted it the next day. The birthday of the world. Venus. Babette. Slowly, I stroked her forehead, then her cheek. I touched her lips with my fingers. Lips that had kissed me. That had covered my body with kisses. Sucked my cock. Her lips.

Like a madman, I covered her mouth with mine.

Babette.

The taste of salt. I thrust my tongue into her mouth, as far as it would go. In an impossible kiss, a kiss I wanted her to carry away with her. My tears ran. They were salty, too. They ran onto her open eyes. I kissed death. Passionately. Looking into her eyes. That was love. Looking into one another's eyes. And this was death. Not taking our eyes off one another.

Babette.

Her body moved convulsively. I had the taste of blood in my mouth. And I vomited the one thing I still had left to vomit. Life.

“Hello, asshole.”

The voice. The voice I'd have recognized anywhere.

Shots echoed above us.

I didn't stand. I turned slowly, still sitting with my ass in the wet sand and my hands in the pockets of my jacket. With my right hand, I lifted the safety on my gun. After that, I didn't move.

He was aiming a gun in my direction, a big Colt. He looked me up and down. I couldn't see his eyes. Rottenness has no eyes, I thought. It's blind. I imagined his eyes when he looked at a woman's body. When he fucked her. Could you be fucked by Evil?

Yes. I had been.

“You tried to fuck us over, huh?”

I felt the contempt in his voice. As if he'd spat in my face.

“There's no point to this anymore,” I said. “Killing her, or me. Tomorrow morning, the whole thing will be on the Internet. The complete list.”

I'd called Cyril before I left. I'd told him to put it all out there, tonight. Without waiting to see what Babette thought.

He laughed. “The Internet?”

“Everyone will be able to read those fucking lists.”

“Shut up, asshole. Where are the originals?”

I shrugged. “She didn't have time to tell me, dickhead. That's what we came here for.”

More shots, up there on the rocks. Béraud was alive. At least for the moment.

“Right,” the hitman said. He moved forward. He was a few feet from me now. His gun pointing right at me.

“Where's your knife?” I said. “Did you break it on my old friend?”

He laughed again. “Would you have preferred it if I cut you up too, asshole?”

Now, I told myself.

My finger on the trigger.

Shoot!

“Would you let me kill him? All of you?”

Shoot, dammit! Mavros screamed. Sonia started screaming too. And Félix. And Babette. Shoot! they were yelling. Fonfon, with anger in his eyes. Honorine, looking at me sadly. “The most honorable thing a survivor can do . . .” Shoot!

Fuck it, Montale, kill him! Kill him!

“I'm going to kill him.”

Shoot!

Slowly he took aim at my head.

Shoot!

“Enzo!” I cried.

I fired. I emptied the whole cartridge into him.

He collapsed. The nameless killer. The voice. The voice of death. Death itself.

I started shaking. My hand still tight on the grip of the gun. Move, Montale. Move, don't stay here. I got up. I was shaking more and more.

“Montale!” Béraud called.

He wasn't far now. Another shot. Then silence.

Béraud didn't call again.

I walked unsteadily toward the boat. I looked at the gun in my hand. Manu's gun. With a violent movement, I flung it away from me, out to sea. It fell in the water, making almost the same noise—in my head it was the same noise—as the bullet that entered my back. I felt the bullet, but I didn't hear the shot until afterwards. Though it must have been the other way around.

I took a few steps in the water. With my hand, I stroked the open wound. The blood felt hot on my fingers. There was a burning sensation inside me. It was gaining ground, like the fire in the hills. The acres of my life were going up in smoke.

Sonia, Mavros, Félix, Babette. We'd all been consumed in the fire. The evil was spreading, engulfing the planet. It was too late. Hell had arrived.

Yes, but you're O.K., aren't you, Fabio? You're O.K., right? Right. It's only a bullet. Did it come out the other side? No, dammit. I don't think so.

I collapsed into the boat. Headlong. The motor. Start the motor. I started the motor. Go home now. I was going home. It's over, Fabio.

I picked up the bottle of Lagavulin, opened it, and lifted it to my lips. I felt the liquid going down. It was warm. It felt good. You couldn't grasp life, you just had to live it. What? Nothing. I was tired. Very tired. Sleep, yes. But don't forget to invite Hélène to lunch. On Sunday. Yes, Sunday. When's Sunday? Dammit, Fabio, don't fall asleep. The boat. You need to steer the boat. Go home. To Les Goudes.

 

The boat was heading out to sea. Everything was fine now. The whisky was trickling over my chin and down my neck. I couldn't feel anything anymore. In my body or in my head. The pain was gone. All my pains. All my fears. Fear itself.

 

Now I am death

 

I'd read that somewhere . . . Try to remember.

I am death.

Lole, could you draw the curtains on our life? Please. I'm tired.

Please, Lole.

The analysis of the Mafia presented in this novel derives in large part from official documents, in particular
United Nations World Summit for Social Development: The Globalization of Crime
(United Nations Public Information Department), as well as two articles that appeared in
Le Monde Diplomatique
: “Europe's Confetti Money in the Great Planetary Casino,” by Jean Chesneaux (January 1996) and “How Organized Crime Is Poisoning the World Economy” by Michel Chossudovsky (December 1996). Many of the facts mentioned have also been reported in
Le Canard Enchaîné
,
Le Monde
and
Libération
.

Jean-Claude Izzo was born in Marseilles in 1945. Best known for the Marseilles trilogy (
Total Chaos
,
Chourmo
,
Solea
), Izzo is also the author of
The Lost Sailors
, and
A Sun for the Dying
. Izzo is widely credited with being the founder of the modern Mediterranean noir movement. He died in 2000 at the age of fifty-five.