The Nostradamus Prophecies (2 page)

‘I’m talking to the other man first. Perhaps you’ll even bid each other up.’

Bale shrugged. ‘Where are you meeting him?’

‘I’m not saying.’

‘How do you wish to play this then?’

‘You stay here. I go and talk to the other man. See if he’s serious. Then I come back.’

‘And if he’s not? The price goes down?’

‘Of course not. Half a million.’

‘I’ll stay here then.’

‘You do that.’

The gypsy lurched to his feet. He was breathing heavily now, the sweat dampening his shirt at the neck and sternum. When he turned around Bale noticed the imprint of the chair on the cheap leather jacket.

‘If you follow me, I’ll know. Don’t think I won’t.’

Bale took off his sunglasses and laid them on the table. He looked up, smiling. He had long understood the effect his freakishly clotted eyes had on susceptible people. ‘I won’t follow you.’

The gypsy’s mouth went slack with shock. He gazed in horror at Bale’s face. This man had the ia chalou – the evil eye. Babel’s mother had warned him of such people. Once you saw them – once they fixed you with the stare of the basilisk – you were doomed. Somewhere, deep inside his unconscious mind, Babel Samana was acknowledging his mistake – acknowledging that he had let the wrong man into his life.

‘You’ll stay here?’

‘Never fear. I’ll be waiting for you.’

Babel began running as soon as he was out of the cafe. He would lose himself in the crowds. Forget the whole thing. What had he been thinking of? He didn’t even have the manuscript. Just a vague idea of where it was. When the three ursitory had settled on Babel’s pillow as a child to decide his fate, why had they chosen drugs as his weakness? Why not drink? Or women? Now O Beng had got into him and sent him this cockatrice as a punishment.

Babel slowed to a walk. No sign of the gadje. Had he been imagining things? Imagining the man’s malevolence? The effect of those terrible eyes? Maybe he had been hallucinating? It wouldn’t be the first time he had given himself the heebie-jeebies with badly cut drugs.

He checked the time on a parking meter. Okay. The second man might still be waiting for him. Perhaps he would prove more benevolent?

Across the road, two prostitutes began a heated argument about their respective pitches. It was Saturday afternoon. Pimp day in St-Denis. Babel caught his reflection in a shop window. He gave himself a shaky smile. If only he could swing this deal he might even run a few girls himself. And a Mercedes. He would buy himself a cream Mercedes with red leather seats, can holders and automatic air conditioning. And get his nails manicured at one of those shops where blond payo girls in white pinafores gaze longingly at you across the table.

Chez Minette was only a two-minute walk away. The least he could do would be to poke his head inside the door and check out the other man. Sting him for a down-payment – a proof of interest.

Then, groaning under a mound of cash and gifts, he would go back to the camp and placate his hexi of a sister.

Adam Sabir had long since decided that he was on a wild goose chase. Samana was fifty minutes late. It was only his fascination with the seedy milieu of the bar that kept him in situ. As he watched, the barman began winding down the street-entrance shutters.

‘What’s this? Are you closing?’

‘Closing? No. I’m sealing everybody in. It’s Saturday. All the pimps come into town on the train. Cause trouble in the streets. Three weeks ago I lost my front windows. If you want to get out you must leave by the back door.’

Sabir raised an eyebrow. Well. This was certainly a novel way to maintain your customer base. He reached forward and drained his third cup of coffee. He could already feel the caffeine nettling at his pulse. Ten minutes. He would give Samana another ten minutes. Then, although he was still technically on holiday, he would go to the cinema and watch John Huston’s Night of the Iguana – spend the rest of the afternoon with Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr. Add another to his no doubt unsaleable book on the hundred best films of all time.

‘ Une pression, s’il vous plait. Rien ne presse.’

The barman waved a hand in acknowledgement and continued winding. At the last possible moment a lithe figure slid under the descending shutters and straightened up, using a table for support.

‘ Ho! Tu veux quoi, toi? ’

Babel ignored the barman and stared wildly about the room. His shirt was drenched beneath his jacket and sweat was cascading off the angular lines of his chin. With single-minded intensity he concentrated his attention on each table in turn, his eyes screwed up against the bright interior glare.

Sabir held up a copy of his book on Nostradamus, as they had agreed, with his photograph on prominent display. So. The gypsy had arrived at last. Now for the let-down. ‘I’m over here, Monsieur Samana. Come and join me.’

Babel tripped over a chair in his eagerness to get to Sabir. He steadied himself, limping, his face twisted towards the entrance to the bar. But he was safe for the time being. The shutters were fully down now. He was sealed off from the lying gadje with the crazy eyes. The gadje who had sworn to him that he wouldn’t follow. The gadje who had then trailed him all the way to Chez Minette, not even bothering to hide himself in the crowd. Babel was still in with a chance.

Sabir stood up, a quizzical expression on his face. ‘What’s the matter? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’ Close to, all the savagery that he had detected in the gypsy’s stare had transformed itself into a vacant mask of terror.

‘You’re the writer?’

‘Yes. See? That’s me. On the inside back cover.’

Babel reached across to the next table and grabbed an empty beer glass. He smashed it down on to the surface between them and ground his hand in the broken shards. Then he reached across and took Sabir’s hand in his bloodied paw. ‘I’m sorry for this.’ Before Sabir had time to react, the gypsy had forced his hand down on to the broken glass.

‘Jesus! You little bastard…’ Sabir tried to snatch his hand back.

The gypsy clutched hold of Sabir’s hand and forced it against his own, until the two hands were joined in a bloody scum. Then he smashed Sabir’s bleeding palm against his forehead, leaving a splattered imprint. ‘Now. Listen! Listen to me.’

Sabir wrenched his hand from the gypsy’s grasp. The barman emerged from behind his bar brandishing a foreshortened billiard cue.

‘Two words. Remember them. Samois. Chris.’ Babel backed away from the approaching barman, his bloodied palm held up as if in benediction. ‘Samois. Chris. You remember?’ He threw a chair at the barman, using the distraction to orientate himself in relation to the rear exit. ‘Samois. Chris.’ He pointed at Sabir, his eyes wild with fear. ‘Don’t forget.’

Babel knew that he was running for his life. Nothing had ever felt as certain as this before. As complete. The pain in his hand was a violent, throbbing ache. His lungs were on fire, each breath tearing through him as if it were studded with nails.

Bale watched him from fifty metres back. He had time. The gypsy had nowhere to go. No one he could speak to. The Surete would take one look at him and put him in a straitjacket – the police weren’t overly charitable to gypsies in Paris, especially gypsies covered in blood. What had happened in that bar? Who had he seen? Well, it wouldn’t take him long to find out.

He spotted the white Peugeot van almost immediately. The driver was asking directions of a window cleaner. The window cleaner was pointing back towards St-Denis and scrunching his shoulders in Gallic incomprehension.

Bale threw the driver to one side and climbed into the cab. The engine was still running. Bale slid the van into gear and accelerated away. He didn’t bother to check in the rear-view mirror.

Babel had lost sight of the gadje. He turned and looked behind him, jogging backwards. Passers-by avoided him, put off by his bloodied face and hands. Babel stopped. He stood in the street, sucking in air like a cornered stag.

The white Peugeot van mounted the kerb and smashed into Babel’s right thigh, crushing the bone. Babel ricocheted off the bonnet and fell heavily on to the pavement. Almost immediately he felt himself being lifted – strong hands on his jacket and the seat of his trousers. A door was opened and he was thrown into the van. He could hear a terrible, high-pitched keening and belatedly realised that it was coming from himself. He looked up just as the gadje brought the heel of his hand up beneath his chin.

Babel awoke to an excruciating pain in his legs and shoulders. He raised his head to look around, but saw nothing. It was only then that he realised that his eyes were bandaged and that he was tied, upright, to some sort of metal frame from which he hung forward, his legs and arms in cruciform position, his body in an involuntary semicircle, as though he were thrusting out his hips in the course of some particularly explicit dance. He was naked.

Bale gave Babel’s penis another tug. ‘So. Have I got your attention at last? Good. Listen to me, Samana. There are two things you must know. One. You are definitely going to die – you cannot possibly talk your way out of this or buy your life from me with information. Two. The manner of your death depends entirely on you. If you please me, I will cut your throat. You won’t feel anything. And the way I do it, you will bleed to death in under a minute. If you displease me, I will hurt you – far more than I am hurting you now. To prove to you that I intend to kill you – and that there is no way back from the position in which you find yourself – I am going to slice your penis off. Then I shall cauterise the wound with a hot iron so that you don’t bleed to death before your time.’

‘Don’t! Don’t do it! I will tell you anything you want to know. Anything.’

Bale stood with his knife held flat against the outstretched skin of Babel’s member. ‘Anything? Your penis, against the information that I seek?’ Bale shrugged his shoulders. ‘I don’t understand. You know that you will never use it again. I have made this quite clear. Why should you wish to retain it? Don’t tell me that you are still labouring under the delusion that there is hope?’

A filament of saliva drooled from the edge of Babel’s mouth. ‘What do you want me to tell you?’

‘First. The name of the bar.’

‘Chez Minette.’

‘Good. That is correct. I saw you enter there myself. Who did you see?’

‘An American. A writer. Adam Sabir.’

‘Why?’

‘To sell him the manuscript. I wanted money.’

‘Did you show him the manuscript?’

Babel gave a fractured laugh. ‘I don’t even have it. I’ve never seen it. I don’t even know if it exists.’

‘Oh dear.’ Bale let go of Babel’s penis and began stroking his face. ‘You are a handsome man. The ladies like you. A man’s greatest weakness always lies in his vanity.’ Bale criss-crossed his knife blade over Babel’s right cheek. ‘Not so pretty now. From one side, you’ll still do. From the other – Armageddon. Look. I can put my finger right through this hole.’

Babel started screaming.

‘Stop. Or I shall mark the other side.’

Babel stopped screaming. Air fl uttered through the torn flaps of his cheek.

‘You advertised the manuscript. Two interested parties answered. I am one. Sabir the other. What did you intend to sell to us for half a million euros? Hot air?’

‘I was lying. I know where it can be found. I will take you to it.’

‘And where is that?’

‘It’s written down.’

‘Recite it to me.’

Babel shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

‘Turn the other cheek.’

‘No! No! I can’t. I can’t read…’

‘How do you know it’s written down then?’

‘Because I’ve been told.’

‘Who has this writing? Where can it be found?’ Bale cocked his head to one side. ‘Is a member of your family hiding it? Or somebody else?’ There was a pause. ‘Yes. I thought so. I can see it on your face. It’s a member of your family, isn’t it? I want to know who. And where.’ Bale grabbed hold of Babel’s penis. ‘Give me a name.’

Babel hung his head. Blood and saliva dripped out of the hole made by Bale’s knife. What had he done? What had his fear and bewilderment made him reveal? Now the gadje would go and find Yola. Torture her too. His dead parents would curse him for not protecting his sister. His name would become unclean – mahrime. He would be buried in an unmarked grave. And all because his vanity was stronger than his fear of death.

Had Sabir understood those two words he had told him in the bar? Would his instincts about the man prove right?

Babel knew that he had reached the end of the road. A lifetime spent building castles in the air meant that he understood his own weaknesses all too well. Another thirty seconds and his soul would be consigned to Hell. He would have only one chance to do what he intended to do. One chance only.

Using the full hanging weight of his head, Babel threw his chin up to the left, as far as it could reach and then wrenched it back downwards in a vicious semicircle to the right.

Bale took an involuntary step backwards. Then he reached across and grabbed a handful of the gypsy’s hair. The head lolled loose, as if sprung from its moorings.

‘Nah!’ Bale let the head drop forward. ‘Impossible.’

Bale walked a few steps away, contemplated the corpse for a second and then approached again. He reached forwards and filleted the gypsy’s ear with his knife. Then he slid off the blindfold and thumbed back the man’s eyelids. The eyes were dull – no spark of life.

Bale cleaned his knife on the blindfold and walked away, shaking his head.

Captain Joris Calque of the Police Nationale ran the unlit cigarette beneath his nose, then reluctantly replaced it in its gunmetal case. He slid the case into his jacket pocket. ‘At least this cadaver’s good and fresh. I’m surprised blood isn’t still dripping from its ear.’ Calque stubbed his thumb against Babel’s chest, withdrew it, then craned forwards to monitor for any colour changes. ‘Hardly any lividity. This man hasn’t been dead for more than an hour. How did we get to him so fast, Macron?’