Slaughterhouse
A Novel Of France’s OAS
by
Michael T. Hertz
© 2009 Michael T. Hertz
All rights reserved
“When I want to know what France thinks, I ask myself.”
— Charles de Gaulle
“I am accountable only to those who suffer and die for having believed in a disavowed word and betrayed commitments. Henceforth, I shall keep silent.”
— Raoul Salan
“You could shoot every politician in France, and what would it get you? Nothing, because they grow like weeds.”
— Gérard Lupo
PROLOGUE
Livorno, Italy, July 2, 1966
Whenever Lupo dreamed about Algeria it was always about Rue Vergers in Hydra, south of Algiers. This never made much sense to him. Thank God, dreams about Algeria didn’t come often, but when they did he'd see – somewhere – the white brick building with the shattered windows. At the end of the dream he'd always walk inside, the way he’d done that day four years ago in 1962. Armed with the automatic rifle, he’d slip past the steel-plated door and march down the echoing corridor.
And then he'd wake with a cry in his throat, perspiration pouring down his forehead, even in the winter when his bedroom froze. Once he woke to hot piss running down his leg. Awake, shivering, he’d lie in the dark. And remember . . . .
Algeria: a bloodbath – starting with the Arab rebellion, leading to seven years of death and devastation. Eventually, France bowed to the inevitable and thrust Algeria toward liberation. Some in the French army resisted. In the abortive Algiers putsch of 1961 he had stood with the rebel soldiers at the barricades and confronted the French Army loyalists. After that debacle, he and many of the mutineers joined the Secret Army Organization, still refusing to relinquish French Algeria and attacking anyone – European or Muslim – who opposed it. Knife attacks, drive-by shootings, bombings and bank robberies became their hallmark, until the final days when Pantin, Reinhardt, and he boarded the small, listing cabin cruiser in Tipasa.
The boat sputtered across the gray water as he looked back toward burning Algiers. A warehouse near a dock slowly collapsed into smouldering rubble. In its last French days, when Algiers belched oily smoke from a hundred blazes, no one tried to douse the fires. The fire brigades had fled, too. Refugees stood interminable hours at the airport and the docks, trying to escape back to France before the Arab takeover, as French Algeria groaned its final agony. As a member of the outlawed Secret Army – the OAS – his choice had been simple: either flee or the liberated Algerians would kill him.
He'd seen more than his share of killing and had done plenty himself. Death, war, and destruction were commonplace to him, so why should he dwell on Rue Vergers? Yet it crouched grimly in the back of his mind – even more than the Crédit Lyonnais in Aix, where that bastard Jobert had gunned down poor Maurice on the steps of the bank.
He thought about Jobert a lot these days. Exiled in Italy, what else can you think about except revenge – especially on the man who killed your brother? But still he remembered Rue Vergers. Maybe it was the horror of the white brick slaughterhouse – he just couldn't drive it out of his mind. Probably he wouldn't until the day he died.
The old meat-packing plant had been tucked back on a side street in a blue-collar quarter. The whole sector lay shattered, with a few unlucky souls living in burned-out buildings. French soldiers patrolled the streets, shooting indiscriminately as they became increasingly frightened and callous. Even so, more and more Algerian guerrillas sneaked from hiding as the day approached when the tricolor flag would drop one last time and the Arabs would take over.
He sat in the passenger seat of a Fiat with one headlight smashed and a smear of paint blacking the rear window. He wore dirty civilian clothes and old para boots, with his slide-bolt gun stashed under his seat. Fihol drove, Celest sprawled in the back, smoking and from time to time belching. Both were dead now. So many dead, but not him. Not Gérard Lupo.
Not yet.
Celest had taken a drag on his smoke and pitched the fag out the window, then complained, “What're we doing here?”
He told Celest to shut up. Fihol stopped the car by a hydrant. Something – someone – had wrenched the hydrant out of the ground, so it jutted at a crazy angle. Who had done it? Their own OAS? The Arabs? The loyalist French Army? What did it matter? The city was ripping itself apart before their eyes and nothing could stop it.
He got out. “Let's go,” he ordered.
The other two followed, Celest still bitching. His voice echoed amid the rubble of the street.
“Shut up,” Fihol said. “You'll get us all killed.”
Celest grumbled as they approached the white brick building. “What's this place?”
Fihol shrugged and replied, “They used to kill cows here.”
Celest laughed sourly. “I could use a nice, bloody beefsteak.”
Lupo held up his hand. “Wait.”
“What for?”
“Listen.”
They listened, heard nothing. The others fingered their triggers.
He said, “Bédeau's group is supposed to meet us here.”
“Oh.” Celest turned his head with its big ears this way and that. “I don't think they're here.”
Far away, an explosion went crump! crump! but in the entryway to the slaughterhouse there was nothing but old newspapers, sunshine, and flies.
Celest began moaning. “I don't like it here.”
“Let's go in then.”
“You go,” Celest said, “if you're so brave.”
“Either Bédeau's here or he's not.” Lupo stepped over the stone slab and slipped past the door.
The concrete underfoot clattered with the hobnails of his boots. The place was in shadow except for the sunshine sifting through a skylight. "Bédeau!" he called, walking into the high-ceilinged room. "Hey, Bédeau!"
The last word jammed in his throat. Arab writing streaked the wall. In the center, the three bodies swayed from old meat hooks. Back and forth, twisted by unseen hands. He recognized Bédeau with his throat cut and his liver on the floor. The Arab guerillas had butchered the other two in a parody of crucifixion. In the cold sunshine he fell to his knees and retched. His yellow puke mixed with their blood.
Then he staggered away.
Every time he had the dream, he'd wake in Livorno, thinking for a moment he was back in Algiers, then remember he wasn't. Once when he screamed in the dark, the woman in bed beside him started screaming, too, jumped up and ran naked from the room.
Sometimes, he'd think the dream of the slaughterhouse was a punishment. Or a curse. For what? The men he killed while he was fighting for the OAS? Or was it about the woman? He thought about her many times and wondered what would happen if he saw her again. Whether it were a curse or not, it was far too late to change anything. His life had been like a slaughterhouse; it was his destiny to live his life this way, meeting Jobert again and again. It would go on over and over until one of them died.
He sat on the balcony of the old house in Livorno, drank good wine, speared Tuscan cheese with a small knife. The orange sun sank below the ground. He'd meet Jobert again. Someday it had to happen. Then he’d make sure: for Jobert, it would be too late forever.
1
Marseille, September 14, 1962 Time: 19:30
They were in shirt sleeves that night, and even in the streets everyone glistened with sweat. Inside the police station on Rue St. Ferreol, with the chairs in the mess hall crammed together, it was warmer still. Policemen, some in uniform, others in plain clothes, some sitting, some standing, talked and laughed and joked, wishing they were somewhere else drinking something cool.
In the center of the room was a slide projector. Beside it stood a blond-haired man in his early forties in a suit and tie, smoking a pipe. He was speaking in subdued tones to a short, swarthy man of roughly the same age who had eyes so intensely brown that they were nearly black. Dressed in shirt sleeves, his hair was curly and close-cropped, and he had thin cheeks, flat lips, heavy brows, and a long nose. Like an Arab.
Across the room a balding cop in uniform named Martel nudged Dinon, his partner, and muttered, “Who’s the raghead?” He enjoyed maligning Muslims but did it in secret.
Dinon felt as he always did when Martel started his ugly talk. Not that there weren’t others on the force who would say the same – or a lot worse. But he felt tainted when Martel did, maybe because he drove with Martel all the time and didn’t like embarrassment. “He was born in Marseille,” Dinon said in a low voice.
“Says who?” It was the same black mutter. “His people stole my Dad’s farm in Algeria. My people came back here without a sou, don’t you know? Like all the other refugees.”
“Pipe down, ” Dinon mouthed sideways. “Anyway, he’s not Algerian. He’s Tunisian.”
“Hah! Same difference!” Martel’s arms crossed and he scowled. “Just look at him: another fucking sand nigger.”
Before Dinon could think of any reply, the blonde man removed his pipe from his mouth and slapped the table for attention. “All right, please! We’re starting, all right!” The policemen throughout the room immediately stopped talking. The ones standing began to straggle to their seats.
“I’m Chretien Lamont,” the blonde man continued. “I’m with the Anti-Terrorist Brigade in Paris.” He gestured at the swarthy man. “This is Guy Jobert, whom I’m proud to call my partner. He’s going to lead this program. Jobert?”
The room became almost quiet. Martel still glowered and kept his arms crossed as the darker man took the floor.
“Thanks for coming, even if it is your job,” Jobert said. “We’ve got a bit of light entertainment for you this evening. No dancing girls, unfortunately, but some slides that you’ll find interesting. Now, you may not believe this, but there’s still an OAS out there. Thanks to men like you, most of the Secret Army Organization is dead or hiding out somewhere or in prison – like their leader, General Salan. Remember him?”
“Sure! Right! Yeah!” the policemen called out. “Salop!”
“It was hard work – by men like you – that put him there. All right, then. Lights, camera, action.”
The room suddenly went dark. Jobert started flashing pictures on the screen.
The first one was a photograph of a store front. It might have been a butcher shop, although with all the chaos and destruction are it, it was hard to tell what sort of store it must have been. The front was completely ripped apart, and there was no sign above the door. On the sidewalk stood a fireman in a helmet, carrying an automatic weapon. Next to him a policeman knelt by a black tarpaulin. Three sets of legs stuck out from under the tarpaulin: a man’s, a woman’s, and a little girl’s, one of whose shoes was missing.
“Gentlemen, we need your help,” Jobert said. “We’ve had the OAS besieging France for over eighteen months. Think of it, please: that’s eighteen months of murder, robbery and bombings.”
Another photo flashed on the screen. The body in the picture had a badge pinned to its shirt. The face above the badge had a bullet hole drilled neatly through the forehead. The man’s eyes were wide open, staring at nothing. “Your own colleagues have been killed – several here in Marseille.”
Click! Another photo. This one showed an overturned car on a road. “Five attempts were made to assassinate President De Gaulle. Why? Because he was the one who decided that we’d have peace in Algeria.”
Martel leaned over to whisper in Dinon’s ear. “That’s not why. It’s because he sold us out to the stinking Muslims! The traitor!”
Click! The next photo was a scratchy picture of the barricades in Algiers, made of ripped up cobblestones and wood. “Salan and his gang gave us the putsch of the generals in Algeria just last year.” Everyone in the room recognized that photo. It was the front page on all the newspapers in April 1961. That was when they all thought the paras would be chuting into Paris and assaulting the Elysée Palace. April 22 had been a night when they were glad they were cops and had guns to protect their own families. “But the putsch failed,” Jobert went on, “and when that failed, they gave us the OAS.”
Click! This one was an older man, frowning, dour. Underneath the picture it read “General Roger Morel - April 26, 1962.”
“They’re still out there. Like General Morel, the OAS treasurer. He holds millions of francs in Switzerland or Panama. Let us know if you find any of it.” A few men laughed.
Click! A military officer on a wanted poster: a handsome man in his forties with snapping eyes. He looked like a big man, with cross-hatched eyebrows, black hair graying at the temples. “The Greek” was his poster nickname. “Colonel Gérard Lupo continues to run free, somewhere in Italy. He comes from Marseille, so watch for him.”
Click! A heavy-set man, eyes closed, blood on one side of his head. This time it was Lamont who spoke. “This was Maurice Lupo, the brother of Gérard Lupo. Maurice Lupo was killed trying to rob the Crédit Lyonnais in Aix in January of this year. Your speaker, Guy Jobert, is very modest, but he was instrumental in eliminating him.”
“Thank you,” his partner said quietly.
Click! More pictures. Pictures of other OAS members. “Here are men you need to be looking for,” Jobert said. Click! A name. Click! Another name. Click!
And on and on, until the meeting broke up well after ten. The local policemen went back to laughing and joking as they filed from the room and headed for the bars nearby. Jobert and Lamont, his jacket now over his arm, walked out to drive to the hotel. Lamont stopped to talk to another officer; Jobert went on to get the car. He was pulling out his keys just as a Peugeot squealed around the corner, engine howling. Submachine guns poked from the right hand windows.
Lamont turned and saw. “Down!" he screamed.
Jobert heard him or the car or both and dived for the pavement. Up the block, Lamont threw down his jacket and fumbled for his automatic. The submachine guns opened up with a sound like canvas ripping. Bullets spewed from the Peugeot, slammed off concrete, smashed windows, sparked off parked cars, and plowed through Jobert's leg and back.
The Peugeot slowed, lingering for the kill. Jobert sprawled bleeding under his car. But Lamont came running, shirttails flapping, howling, “Merde! Putain!” – obscenities he rarely used. A gunman emerged from the Peugeot, hunting Jobert. Lamont braced, aimed, opened fire. His bullets crashed through the Peugeot's rear window. The man with the gun turned and hesitated; time seemed to stop. Lamont fired again, and his bullet tore through the killer’s coat. The man plunged back into the safety of the Peugeot, and the car roared away while Lamont emptied his magazine fruitlessly.
Jobert lay bloody in the gutter, one leg shattered. Bullets had slashed a slab of meat off his back.
Lamont still remembers the hospital: white corridors, green linoleum, the smells of lineament and alcohol; stiff doctors, starched nurses. He shuffled into the sickroom in hospital slippers. Jobert lay on his back, small, alone, swathed in bandages, face pinched and gray.
Lamont made his voice as tender as a woman's. "How are you, vieux?" Tears welled in his eyes.
Jobert could hardly turn his head. He barely whispered his reply. "I'm not with Stephanie yet.”
2
Marseille, July 18, 1966 Time: 12:40
It was well past noon, and the Canebière, the broad main street in Marseille leading down to the Old Port, was crowded with shoppers and traffic. A police car was parked near a crosswalk not far from the Bourse at No. 22. Pedestrians were crowding in front of the car, waiting for the light to change. Martel was at the steering wheel. His young partner, Dinon, was in the front seat, stifling a yawn.
Then the traffic light changed, and people started walking. Dinon blinked and stared up through the front window at a man passing by. Dinon pointed. “Hey, who’s that guy?”
Martel had his thumb in his mouth, nibbling at the cuticle. “Who?”
Dinon jabbed at the scene outside. “The tall one, the Greek? Merde alors, don’t you see him? Isn’t he — ?”
The man had short, dark hair and was wearing a beige polo shirt and light trousers. He had a newspaper tucked under his arm and, looking straight ahead, crossed with the other pedestrians. Martel scrutinized the man as he walked away. “Who do you think he is?” Dinon asked.
Martel looked back at his thumb. “You don’t want to know.” The man rapidly disappeared from view in the surge of walkers approaching from across the street. Martel lay back against the driver’s seat. “Take my advice, fiston. Forget you ever saw him, okay?”
During the rest of the shift, Dinon kept thinking about the man. At four o’clock, they were back at the station. Martel and some of his buddies went across the street to the café for a drink. Dinon begged off going. When the others were gone, he looked at the wanted posters on the wall. The Greek wasn’t there.
He went to the clerk at the front desk. “Where do they keep the other wanted fliers?”
The man rummaged around and pulled a small box out from under the counter. “Here. These are the old ones.” He shoved the box across to Dinon. “Give them back when you’re through.”
Dinon started flicking through the posters, one by one. He looked at them all carefully.
* * * * *
It was nearly five, and Chretien Lamont was in his Paris office on Rue du Bac, puffing on his pipe, reading a letter. The telephone rang. He kept reading as he reached to answer.
“Anti-Terrorism, Lamont. Call from Marseille? Fine.” During the long wait he continued to read while the operator connected the call.
A new voice came on the line. “Hello?”
He held his pipe. “Chretien Lamont here. How can I help you?”
There were muffled sounds like drinkers in a bar, and the caller whispered, “I’m Michel Dinon, Inspector, and I’m with the police in Marseille. I saw you four years ago when you were here with your partner, Jobert. The night the OAS nearly killed him.” The voice hesitated.
The reminder of that night tightened Lamont’s grip on the phone. He put down the letter. “Go on.”
“I saw Gérard Lupo crossing the street in Marseille. Today. At noon. I got your number off the wanted poster.”
“Who else knows this?”
The voice from Marseille became even hoarser. “I told no one, Chief Inspector. I’m at a pay phone.”
Lamont looked at his watch. “I can catch the overnight train and be in Marseille tomorrow morning. How sure are you that it was Lupo?”
“I’d stake my life on it if I had to,” Dinon said. “I found the wanted poster at the station. It was him, all right.”
“Fine.” Lamont puffed on his pipe while he thought. “All right, then. I want you to meet me at the train. I think it gets in at seven in the morning. You can do that, can’t you?”
“Of course, Chief Inspector. I’m not on duty until ten tomorrow. And I’ve seen you before, so I’ll recognize you, I’m sure.”
“Good, Dinon. Good. Well, don’t tell anyone anything until we get a chance to talk, all right?”
“I wouldn’t.” The voice stopped for a second, then plunged on. “Maybe you know how it is. There are still too many people here who don’t want him caught.”
“I imagine,” Lamont replied, “that may be so.”
3
Marseille, July 18, 1966 Time: 15:45
The gun rode tight in Pantin's tail bone holster, but he hardly thought about it. He'd strapped on a .38 every day for seven years, wore one like shoes or shirt. This pistol was part of him, and he couldn't see how that would ever change.
Instead of thinking about the gun, he thought about the meeting at the top of the Cours Jarrel. The meeting – and cops. Afternoon sun splashed his face while he strode up the cobblestones, briefcase in hand, his black eyes searching every step for police. The flics, they were everywhere it seemed. Every time Pantin saw a cop, he felt his gut wrench so hard he could barely walk straight. Only he did walk straight; he couldn't afford to attract attention.
"You see a cop? You’re near him?" Lupo used to say. "Then don't jerk to the side. Right? Don't glance away. Know why?" Lupo's eyes would lash out and grab your throat when he spoke. "Know why? Because a flic's like a dog on the hunt – he can smell the stink of fear. Don’t you forget it."
Pantin never forgot. In the OAS Lupo had trained him so well that he never glanced away. A million police, lined up in rows with truncheons and rifles, and he'd go calmly marching about on business. The CRS could roll by in big blue busses with bars over the windows, cop faces masked behind the bars. Or they'd park, with three CRS standing there, smoking, automatic weapons cradled in their arms. Pantin would saunter on by. His stomach would growl, but the police never knew.
Ahead of him a dirty Algerian woman squatted in rags on the sidewalk, clutching her squalling baby with one hand and begging with the other, murmuring her little guttural croon of self-pity through rotting teeth. The fatmas were everywhere – crapping up the place worse than the police. Marseille crawled with them like maggots.
The Algerians – her people – hounded him and his family from their home in Algiers. His family were pieds noirs – immigrants arrived on North Africa's shores, their bare feet black with the soil of Algeria. For a hundred years his family lived in North Africa. Until De Gaulle came, the pieds noirs were the kings of the dark ground. De Gaulle sold them out, and now they were outcasts, the damned of the earth, chased from Algeria to the degradation of this putrid Marseille.
That wasn't all. Oh, no. De Gaulle let the Algerians drive them out and then – not content with handing that country over to them – he let the dirty beggars slither their way into Marseille, just as if they owned the place. On every corner of every street one of them crouched, like this slovenly fatma, telling him –
What's the use? Pantin almost spat at her in disgust. He wished he could, but he'd attract attention he couldn't afford. He just ignored her outstretched hand, the jingle of small coins lying in it, the woman's rasping for pity for herself and her colicky brat, and stalked on to No. 55.
The building was like most others around the square: stone steps, dirty gray walls, gray shutters barricading the windows, walls caked with tattered posters for movies and for underwear. "OAS = SS" was smeared in white paint over a poster bearing De Gaulle's face, with swastikas dabbed on his cheeks. Interesting political commentary, he thought.
He halted in front of No. 55, shifted the thin, black briefcase under his arm, felt the reassuring heft of the gun against his rump. There was just a chance all of this was a set-up to get him. Remote, but just a possibility. His eyes ranged across the square, back and forth.
No police, he finally decided but, deep down, he couldn't shake the fear.
He pushed the brass button at the front for the third floor apartment and waited. The empty card-holder under the button stared back at him, and despite the bright sunshine he felt a sudden shiver run through him.
He didn’t think anyone really noticed him. Across the street, a vendor selling ice cream plopped a scoop in a cone and handed it to a greedy child. "Kiki!" A lame old woman scolded her yappy white poodle. "Kiki! Bad dog!" A battered taxi snorted by, turning left at the corner. Pantin huddled in the shadows as it slid out of sight.
The buzzer rasped. He pushed past the heavy black steel and glass door.
Inside, the entryway was dank even in July. The door closed with a dull thud. A cobweb dangled from a light fixture. Below it, someone had swept cracked wall plaster into an untidy pile. He lurched up the tiled stairs two at a time, eyes front, left hand on the rail, briefcase in the right, gun swaying against his tail bone. By the time his feet reached the third landing, he was sweating a bit.
The apartment door stood ajar. He slipped inside and noiselessly shut the brown, scratched door.
"Pantin." A voice called from the salon. He knew who it was.
He suddenly realized that he was holding his breath. He let air leak out slowly as he crossed the fresh white of the living room. The late sun peeped over the building across the way and through the open, high-framed windows. The room held a garden table and two iron chairs, one lightbulb for the center fixture, a carafe of water, a corkscrew, two fine wine glasses, and a bottle of red wine. A small, conical lamp perched forlornly on the floor under the window. The man he'd come to see sat at the table.
The raw smell of new paint pinched Pantin’s nostrils. He wrinkled his nose with distaste. "Smells sweet in here."
"I just borrowed this place. No one will interrupt."
Pantin lay the briefcase in the center of the table and examined the wine bottle. "Nuit Saint-Georges 1961. How nice."
"It's an occasion, isn't it?" The other's thick fingers peeled the foil off the bottle. "Good year for a revolution.”
1961. The year of the putsch and the genesis of the OAS, which fought and grew, stumbled and shrank, and now was preparing to die. "Seems a century ago," Pantin slid onto the opposite chair. "Salan and the generals announcing Algeria would be forever French. The roars of the crowd. The soldiers' cheers." He could almost see the mob swirling below him in the square.
"The collapse of the revolt," the other said sarcastically.
"Striking back. Forming the groups, hiding in apartments in Bab-El-Oued. Going out night after night. Planting plastique bombs. The Delta raids. Attacking the barbouzes De Gaulle sent. A long time ago." He shook his head to clear it. "How's Italy, Colonel?"
"I prefer Marseille." The colonel shrugged his big shoulders sadly and toyed with the corkscrew. "Too bad. Not much chance of my coming back here to live, is there now?"
Neither spoke while the colonel worked out the cork and poured wine generously into the two crystal glasses. He raised one and cocked it at Pantin. "Chin-chin."
"Aux tracasses, Lupo." Pantin drank.
Colonel Lupo held his glass in front of him. A laugh rose harshly from his throat. "Whose problems are we drinking to?"
"Our enemies', of course."
"There are plenty of them. And, thankfully, plenty of wine. Okay, I drink." Lupo drank thirstily from the glass and smacked his lips at the end. "Ah, yes, the good French plonk. See why I miss the place?" He thumped the black side of Pantin's briefcase. "Well, down to business, hein? You’ve brought things to discuss, and I've got a dinner engagement."
"With a woman." Pantin had no doubt about that.
The colonel’s eyes laughed in his direction. "French women. There’s another reason why I miss Marseille." He looked again at the briefcase.
"Oui, mon colonel." Pantin unflapped the leather.
Lupo slouched in his chair with his wine in hand. "Doesn't your ass find it tough perching its bony self on that cannon of yours, Sergeant?"
Pantin smiled fleetingly. "Yes." He unholstered the pistol and slid it with a clatter under his chair. "On the other hand, I prefer sitting on my gun than picking lead out of my ass."
Lupo chuckled and drank more wine. "What's on the agenda today? Money?"
"For you, what else should there be?"
Lupo put down his glass. "When I was younger, money wasn't important. I stole plenty for the organization, nothing for myself."
"And now?"
"I’ve been in Italy four years, mon gar, and I haven’t worked a day. The organization sends me money when I need it, but that’s about to come to an end, right? They’re running out, and I can tell I'll need more."
"Good. Because there's a job for you to do, and it pays well."
Lupo shook his head as though in bewilderment. "I haven't set foot in France for two years, Pantin. I've been living in Livorno, pretending I’m dead. What good am I to anyone?"
Pantin slipped his papers from the briefcase and stacked them in small, neat piles in front of himself. "Didn't Douvaine tell you?"
"On the phone? Practically nothing."
"But he got you to come here."
"I was coming to Marseille anyway. My mother's very sick, I had to see her. Otherwise I'd still be in Livorno." He flexed his powerful hands as though they missed the work they craved. "I'm in forced retirement. Like Jobert." He frowned deeply. "Where's that bastard, anyway?"
Pantin fiddled with his file. "Do you really care?"
"He killed Maurice. Plus, Jobert condemned me to pasta and pesto instead of blanc d'agneau. Not that I dislike Italian food, mind. I just like to choose my dinner." His lip curled. "Damned sure, I care. Where is he?"
"Gone." Pantin jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "We nearly killed him in ‘62 and no one’s seen him since."
"Nearly!" Lupo's voice rose. "He survived. The little bougnat’s slippery as an oil-soaked rat." He flapped his right hand as though warding off gnats. "Ah, he won't die until I get around to killing him, and I’ll have to do it so he won’t get me first."
"Get you, Colonel? Never. Anyway, we're still looking for him," Pantin retorted.
Lupo guffawed. "Oh, merde! How? The organization's dying, Pantin. Even in Italy, I read the papers. We nearly toppled De Gaulle in 1961. Every day we were front page news. Now we're just the bogeymen in bedtime stories. Susini tried to kill him with a bomb at Mont Faron in ‘64, and the damned thing didn’t even explode! The last time someone tried to kill him, it was just a bunch of students. Why couldn't they do the job right and blow the head off the old salop?" He waggled his finger like a gun. "They couldn't and neither can the OAS: kaput! Poof!" He slashed his hand across his throat.
Pantin sat back, papers in hand, and examined the big man across from him. Still brawny, hulking, and tough after all the years exiled in Italy. "That's why we need you, Lupo," said Pantin, softly.
Lupo slapped his big hands against his thighs. "For what, merde alors!" Lupo jerked himself out of the chair, glass in hand, and tossed the dark wine down his throat. Then with that nervous energy of his, familiar to Pantin even after all these years away, he paced to the window, where from the shadows he looked down on the children playing tag and screaming at each other in the center of the Cours Jarrel.
"It's just . . . over, Pantin, don't you see? You've got to know when you're licked. Say what you want, but l'Algérie française, French Algeria, it's all foutu en l'air, gone forever. You could line up De Gaulle and all the other so-called leaders of this wretched little country – put the pistol to their heads, pan! pan! pan! – and what would it get you? Nothing. More of their miserable friends would pop up like weeds. It's too late. Let Morel and others like him be fools enough to think otherwise. Don't you mire yourself in that shit." He stomped back to his chair, seized his empty glass, poured himself a generous dollop of Nuits Saint-Georges. He suddenly barked a huge, ironic laugh.
Pantin joined in the laughter until it died then asked, "You've said your piece?"
"Sure, sure. I've got everything off my chest. Now you say yours. What is it? Spit it out!” He beckoned with a crooked finger beneath a lop-sided grin.
"Okay. Here. You mention Morel."
"The old bastard. Where is he now?"
"Standing on that balcony of his, towering like the colossus of Rhodes over Toulon Harbor."
"Oh, yes," Lupo intoned. "Sitting up there with his mouth shut and his ass on the treasure."
"Exactly." Pantin tapped a finger on the papers piled on the rickety little table. "You see? Do you know how much OAS money Morel has been sitting on, all these years? Our money, I might add, since it is we who are the loyalists of the Secret Army Organization."
Lupo shook his head. "I haven't the slightest idea how much. Mind you, I helped pull off half the hold-ups in Algeria, those last months in '62 – and that's where all that money came from. Millions and millions. I ran the commandos, but the money rolled in so fast we never stopped to count it. Can you imagine all the loot we had?" He stared into his glass. "And I never took any for myself." His sudden laugh turned this time into a caw. "I was a blind fool."
"I missed the fun, since I was in Paris most of that time."
"Listen," Lupo said tightly, "I don't think even Salan knows how much we took. We had a one big room full of it on Rue Pascal. Franc notes floor to ceiling. Hit two banks in a day, sometimes; one before lunch, one after. The motors in the getaway trucks burned so hot they stank – no time to cool off between jobs. Twenty millions at a crack was nothing. We netted thirty, forty, even fifty on some of the bigger ones. And then stupidly we put it all under the control of one man!" He shook his head. "Morel is a madman."
"And where's all that loot? All that fric?" demanded Pantin.
Lupo's big, flat teeth made his head even more brutal when he showed them. He laughed and reached out a paw to cuff Pantin's military brush-cut hair.
"Hey, pet't, guess! Morel's got all that cash socked in some Swiss bank account. We went through that two years ago. We all told him, 'Salan's in prison. You can't wait for him to get out. Give us the fric.' Salan was in hiding, but like a fool he got caught and they jailed him. Where he'll rot. But Morel stood on that balcony of his and said, 'I got the money from Salan, he's my commanding officer, so I give it back to no one but Salan.' You ever try to get Morel to do something he didn't want to do?"
"A mere sergeant like me? I never met him, Colonel."
Lupo smiled bitterly. "It's an experience, pet't. Morel is old school, St. Cyr military. Slogged with Leclerc across France during the ‘44 liberation, went to Indochina, got trapped at Dien Bien Phu. Ate dead rats and drank ditch water with his troops. You watch your friends die from every kind of disease and starvation, it makes you strange in the head. They say he always had a steel spine, but after that he turned fanatic. You can't make him do what he won't do."
"He's a lot older now."
Lupo's brow furrowed. "So what? Susini and Turel wanted to take another crack at Morel, and they wanted me there to help convince him. I didn't want to, but I sneaked back from Italy with them although I knew it would be a waste of time, which it was."
"When was this?"
"Summer of '64, just about this time of year. We came by the ones and the twos and assembled in his apartment. Big, spacious place he has there. I believe his wife – she's dead, cancer – had money. Oh, he was all very polite and proper. Had his man Druot wear white gloves to serve the drinks in fine cut glassware. Morel donned full-dress uniform and herded us out on his damned Toulon balcony to review the fleet – I swear, on a clear day, Morel can spit on Algeria from up there – while Susini stood nose to nose with him, tried to reason with the man. 'We have to have the money now,' Susini insists. Turel says the same thing, and I do too. Morel levels his beak at me like I'm a cockroach, says nothing, does a parade-ground turn. Surveys the fleet as though it's passing for his personal inspection. Then a gull comes flying by and nearly hits him, but do you think he moves? Never. Like a post beam in a windstorm, never even swayed." Lupo raised his wine as if he were trying to read the future in the red. "Why should things be any different now?"
"At the right time, in the right place, could you get Morel to tell you where the money was?"
Lupo frowned again. "What time? What place?"
"Say, in about ten days. You pick the place, Lupo."
"Hmm . . . . " Lupo settled back in his chair. "This sounds serious, Pantin. Is this the job you want me to take?"
"If you want it."
"Are we kidnapping the old man?"
"That," replied Pantin evenly, "will be your decision."
"Don't be so cagey. Give me the big picture. What else will be up to me?"
Pantin picked up a paper and held it out. "This is a memorandum from Fleot. Remember him?"
Lupo reached for the paper. "He was in my command in Algiers, pet't. And?"
"He tells us how to rob the payroll from the SNCF."
"The railroad payroll." He hunched over the paper. "Eighty million? Is that right?"
"He says."
Lupo whistled. "Sounds like the good old days. Where?"
"Aix."
"Anything else?"
"Sud-Aviation in Toulouse. Sixty million, he thinks. Maybe more."
"And there are other jobs?"
"Yes. The same size. If you need them."
"And they want me to head this up?" asked Lupo.
"That was the plan."
"Whose plan? Fleot's?"
"Central's."
"Oh, Fleot, Susini, Turel, Douvaine, etcetera," Lupo said.
"Etcetera," agreed Pantin.
"They want me to do their dirty work again."
"I suppose they figure you're still a loyal soldier, Colonel."
Lupo went to the window. The sun splashed his face. "Oh, I am. Loyal, yes. Some might call it stupid. I've tossed my life into a shit can for the OAS. So what does another tour of duty matter?"
"This is the last one," Pantin said.
"Susini promised me that twice before."
"You'll do it?"
"Who do I work with?"
"Who do you want?"
"Berlier," said Lupo. "And you, of course, Sergeant."
"A vos ordres, mon colonel. And the others?"
"I can give you names. I want Reinhardt, too."
Pantin sniffed. "Reinhardt? He's gone soft in the head."
"How so?"
"All he wants is to live in Hyères with that little woman of his and pop out babies."
Lupo shrugged. "Reinhardt's the one for a fight. I need him."
"Who else?" Pantin's eyes crinkled slowly. "What about Hélène Queruelle?"
Lupo's face went flat. "Leave her out of it."
"You'll want her, too, won't you?"
"If I want her, I can get her."
"Don't you still see her?"
"She lives in Lyon."
"That's not so far."
Lupo said, "I'm exiled in Italy, remember?"
Pantin's lips twitched. "You've skipped over the border a few times, I'll bet. Also, wasn't there a tryst in Switzerland?"
“Well, Sergeant.” Lupo's tone turned nasty. "I can see my love life's common gossip."
Without thinking, Pantin sat at attention. "No offense meant, Colonel. You're a famous man, and people talk."
Lupo let the remark hang. He drummed his fingers on the table. "Tell me: this – sudden activity."
"Yes?"
"Why now?"
Pantin shrugged. "Maybe Central's reached the same conclusion you have."
"Which is?"
"French Algeria, it's no more. The bougnats won. We can't go on and on, running with our guts in knots. We tried to save France. We failed. Now it's time to think of ourselves."
Lupo said sourly, "I told Susini that three years ago. I should have gotten out then."
"Why'd you stay?"
A shrug. "I’m not much good at quitting. Tell me what I’m to do with Morel."
"We get you what you want, and you take him where you have to. You find out about the money." Pantin leaned forward with a smile. "You pick your own team. I’d be happy to serve."
"Then what?"
"Then we go get that money and the other money, too."
Lupo nodded soberly. "We did our best and we failed. We worked hard. We need money to retire." He grinned suddenly. "And the money is ours, isn't it?"
Pantin made a fist. "It is. The old man has no right to keep it from us."
4
Marseille, July 19, 1966 Time: 07:00
There’d been no rest for Lamont on the packed overnight train; the man above him snored and the one across the way tossed and flailed in his sleep. The train's rocking south from Paris churned his stomach and rattled his brain. It finally arrived at the Gare St. Charles in Marseille at seven in the morning. When it sighed to a halt, Lamont clumped wearily down the metal stairs, satchel in one hand, carry bag in the other. The July sun glinting through the stone and glass roof made him blink, even within the darker confines of the station.
He walked slowly down the platform to the barrier. A youthful policeman was standing by the gate, and when Lamont got closer, the policeman started coming toward him. Lamont held out his hand. “Dinon, I take it.”
“Yes, Chief Inspector.” Dinon shook hands, then reached for Lamont’s bags.
Lamont thanked him and gave him the carry bag, keeping the satchel. “Let’s go get some coffee.”
They descended the long Grand Escalier to the Boulevard d’Athenes. Trucks and cabs were already hooting on the street as they crossed to the Bar Pierre. There were a few customers in front. They sat outside at one of the tables, ordered coffee and croissants and watched Marseille yawn and stretch.
Lamont leaned over slightly. “When we discuss our boy, call him ‘Armand,’ all right?” Dinon nodded. “Now here,” Lamont continued, “you can look at this.” He slid a small rectangle of paper across to Dinon.
Dinon took it carefully. It was a copy of the photo that had been used for the wanted poster. After glancing at it, he turned it face down and nodded. “That’s the picture I was looking at. Armand, for sure.”
Lamont sat back and mused. “I wonder what he’s doing here.”
“It may be his mother,” Dinon said.
“Oh? What about her?”
Dinon was about to answer when the waiter arrived with breakfast. Moving officiously, he deposited the food and the tab, then left. Lamont moved the bill to his place, picked up his coffee and took a sip. “Go on.”
On the Boulevard, a police van roared by, klaxon blatting. Dinon waited until the sound faded. “I asked about. I was told that his mother went into the hospital today. She’s dying.”
“I didn’t know that,” Lamont said. “Good work.”
Dinon fiddled with his coffee. “Thank you, Chief Inspector.”
“We’ll stake it out, although I doubt he’d go there to see her.”
Lamont looked out at the pedestrians walking on both sides of the street. Paris was a lot bigger than Marseille, but Marseille had well over a million now, swollen by the refugees who had poured in from Algeria. If they were going to try to get Lupo, he needed men and quickly. Half his group in Paris were on vacation this month, and the other half would go in August. His own vacation had been planned for then. It was going to be a struggle.
“How long have you been on the force, Dinon?”
“Coming up on three years.”
Lamont considered this. “All on the street?”
Dinon nodded.
“So you know the city well?”
“Been here all my life.”
“Well, then,” Lamont said. “I’m going to need to assemble a good group of locals to help my team from Paris. And, if you want to, I’d like you on it.”
Dinon seemed almost shocked. “Oh, thank you, Chief Inspector.”
“Don’t thank me, Dinon. I’m the one needing plenty of help with Armand.”
Le Luc, July 19, 1966 Time: 16:29
Lamont went with Dinon to the main prefecture de police, pulling strings to get assigned a group of twenty men, including Dinon, and arranging with Paris for another ten to come down the next day. He held the first organizational meeting with the Marseille group, appointed Dinon his secretary and then rushed to catch the three o’clock train.
The train was a little red local that jerked from town to town. When it reached the small station at Le Luc, Lamont and only one other traveler got off. The other descending passenger scuttled like a crab for the exit, leaving the little station nearly deserted. The plump conductor leaned lazily from his perch on the rear car and waved nonchalantly to the engineer. The small train squeaked forward again.
A gentle breeze blew off the vineyard on the far side of the tracks. Green leaves greeted Lamont. He was thankful to be here, to taste the afternoon sun and forget the tiring trip and the mad rush around Marseille.
He dropped his bags for a moment. Four-twenty-nine by the station clock. Jobert, you old bastard, where are you? What if Jobert were away? This trip was last minute – he'd only sent the telegram yesterday. "Arriving Le Luc station at 16:29 . . . ." He was on the right train, but Jobert might even be in Marseille . Well, there was always the hotel. He arched his back to relieve the kinks. Either way, he'd nap before dinner; right now, his eyes felt like sandpaper and all his limbs ached. Ah, Jobert, we're all getting older, aren't we?
Lamont retrieved his bags and turned around. The only other person left on the platform was a short, slight man standing under the station sign. The man waved enthusiastically; Lamont walked toward him, swinging his bags. Despite his weariness, his legs moved more quickly when he saw the man's face, and he couldn't help grinning. The other man was smiling, too.
"Jobert." Lamont dropped his bags again.
Though Jobert was easily a head shorter than he, Lamont hardly ever noticed. "Whenever you talk to Jobert," Lamont had told his wife, "his eyes always seem to look straight at you on your level. Have you noticed? His eyes are like brown pools. They suck you in, you can't help yourself. The rest of his face, too, he got from his mother, who was Tunisian, don't forget. But being Tunisian's always made him feel like an outsider. Me, I never think of his face as North African. I guess I should, but I just remember his eyes."
They embraced, then shook hands warmly for a long time.
"Vineyard work's made you healthy again, Jobert."
Jobert chuckled that little sound which meant he was actually happy instead of just being polite. He snatched up both bags over Lamont's protests and found the station exit with quick, energetic strides. All so different from four years ago when he could barely hobble away from the hospital .
Jobert stowed the bags in the back seat of his little Renault and drove Lamont out into the countryside. The lush fields and vines of the Var were a pleasant change from the clatter of Paris and the fumes and honks of Marseille. For several minutes Lamont sat contentedly in his seat. Finally he said, "Aren't you going to ask why I came all this way on such short notice?"
Jobert didn't reply right away. "Your telegram was typically cryptic. Just a quick visit from an old friend, I assumed."
"Hmph! When did you become so naive?"
Jobert drove for a few moments. "Digging in the dirt turns your brain to mush."
Lamont snorted. "You could lose half yours and still be twice as smart as the rest of us. I came down to see how you were, but . . . ." He left the thought hanging.
Jobert drove for several minutes past several vineyards, a cow pasture, a stone mason's yard full of stacked carvings. "It's a bit of police business to do with the OAS?"
Lamont nodded slowly. "See? Don't worry, your brain still works. How'd you know?"
Jobert downshifted along a deserted stretch of highway and jounced left through twin stone pillars onto a dirt road. "If it were anything else, you'd have told me right away. We've known each other a long time; you can speak to me directly about nearly anything but the OAS."
He was right. Since the night Jobert was nearly killed, Lamont had hesitated before mentioning the OAS. Jobert had retired to Le Luc, but time and again Lamont needed to discuss details about the OAS. When he did, he asked carefully.
Jobert's little Renault rocked gently along the dirt road.
"We’re not with Stephanie yet," Lamont muttered, remembering the past.
"Pardon?" Jobert’s attention was apparently on the ruts in the road.
He pushed away images of the grim nights at the hospital. "Nothing, I was thinking of something else."
The Renault growled to a halt beside a two-story, stone house in a copse of cedar trees amid fifty hectares of vines. The sun was high, the wind warm, butterflies danced along the ground. They crossed the flagstone patio and entered the shadowy cool of the house.
"I can give you white wine, if you want some," Jobert offered.
"It'll put me to sleep,” Lamont said. “Of course, that might be a good thing right now.”
Jobert poured. They sat at the small kitchen table, sipped the dry white, watched the sunlight dapple the fields. Jobert broke the comfortable silence. "You’re tired."
"Je suis crevé. I'm exhausted."
Jobert pointed upstairs with a field-stained forefinger. "Your room's right back there if you want to nap."
He sighed. "I still need to tell you . . . ."
Jobert picked up the two empty glasses with one hand. "Tell me later. I'll still be here when you wake up."
"Done." Lamont fell asleep as soon as he stretched out on the bed.
* * * * *
He woke with a start to find the sun low in the sky. Hunger drove him downstairs where Jobert was whistling tunelessly through his teeth. When he came down, Jobert pulled pâté and a small salad from the refrigerator, took out the wine again, cut bread from the loaf on the sideboard, put the bread in a basket on the table. They ate across from one another in the quiet kitchen.
When he asked about the farm, Jobert regaled him with stories of his days in the fields, plantings, weedings, harvests, grape-weighings, bugs, and hail storms. Jobert asked nothing in return. A policeman half his life, he never mentioned the police. He'd become a man of the soil, rooted firmly among his vines and his trees, completely severed from his former city life.
“Come on.” Jobert got up. “We’ll have the rest of dinner a bit later.”
They went outside and walked the rows, studying the progress of the grapes toward wine. They surveyed the property before it became too dark to see, eventually coming back to the house where Jobert fixed a bistro-style chicken with spinach and cold beets with vinaigrette sauce. Lamont ate heartily.
The meal done, Lamont wrapped his fingers around his wine glass before telling Jobert why he'd come. "Lupo's back from Italy." Jobert simply nodded for him to go on.
During all the years they'd worked together, this was always the way between them. He'd uncover something, bring the evidence to Jobert. They'd discuss it together. Something – his own perseverance, his tenacity, or Jobert's insight and brilliance – fit the new facts into the framework of the puzzle. Jobert waited for his story.
"They saw Lupo. Just by chance," Lamont went on. He told Jobert about Dinon, the chance sighting of Lupo, his call to Rue du Bac. "We didn't spread the word among the Marseille police to keep Lupo from learning he's blown. Now there're twenty men down there trying to find him, plus ten more from Paris by tonight."
"Why’d Lupo come back?"
Lamont told him. "His mother’s at the Conception Hospital. He won't leave until she’s dead, which will be soon. Time’s already running out."
Jobert's face said his mind was grinding at the problem. He sprawled forward on the table, resting his unshaven chin in his hands. "I knew his mother. When Lupo and his brother lived in Marseille, before they moved to Toulon. What's she got?"
"Leukemia, I think."
Jobert stared off for a moment into the distant past. "A sad end to a sad life. She was the best of the lot. Her husband beat her, I never understood why she stayed with him. He got killed on the docks when the boys were in their teens. Maurice was a lout, and Gérard, well, I could never figure him out."
"Just a Marseille tough."
Jobert shook his head. "No, there’s a lot more to him than that, believe me. I used to wish I could saw open his skull and search around inside to figure him out. No other way I could . . . . “ He trailed off. “Tournesol?"
"What about him?"
"Did you talk to him?" he asked.
"Good idea. I’ll do that."
Pause. "And Dreux – he’d be a good source.”
"He got killed in a car crash two months ago."
Jobert said distantly, "I don't hear about such things down here."
Lamont spread his hands, palms up, empty. "We've had nothing until now, and it's maddening. We’ve been looking for Lupo for five years. We know he’s in Italy, but aside from that . . . ."
Jobert mumbled, "I suppose there are still things you could do.”
He shook his head. "No, not me. I couldn't."
"No? Why not you?"
A sigh rose in Lamont’s throat. "Because I know my limits, vieux. Give me a trail, I'll follow it to the bitter end, find who made it. It's what I do best, but here it's Gérard Lupo: the ghost from the past. He's been hidden away for years. Spotting him on the Canebière was just crazy luck. Even with that, we won't find him without help."
Jobert sipped the last of his wine and waited. Lamont pointed at him, almost in accusation. "You could find Lupo."
Jobert levered himself upright. "Is that why you came?"
"That and to see you, sure."
A tremulous smile played about Jobert's lips. "Well, you've seen me, mon pot."
"Now I want you to help us find the Greek."
Jobert's eyes seemed blacker than ever. "Who asked you to come? The chief?" When Lamont nodded, he added, "Sure. You'd be too polite to ask."
Lamont leaned over, choosing his words. "You've got a right to be alone, if that's what you want. That's what I told him. But Freynes insisted."
Jobert gripped his glass in both hands. "I want to be alone for now."
He drew in a breath. "Damn it, we still need your help." The plea hung in mid-air.
"No one's indispensable."
Lamont began to feel angry. "Most of the time, yes. In this case, no. See? You're the only one who can do it." When Jobert didn't say anything, he went on. "You know Lupo better than anyone else. You knew him young and older. You've got that gut sense about him. When the rest of us would be thrashing about, you’d find him."
Jobert went to the window. The sky outside was barely light. "Did Freynes tell you to say that?"
"No, those are my words. But that's why he told me to see you."
He sighed. "It's tough to say no to you, Lamont. Or to Freynes. How many friends do I have left? I'm unmarried. You're both among the few I have." He placed his fingers against the window pane, as though he were trying to caress the outside. "I've been a cop forever – I got my diploma, I joined the force – and I knew Lupo even before the war. So I should do what you ask." He turned to confront him. "That's what you think, right?"
Lamont’s head seemed to ache. "I can't tell you what to do, Jobert. I can only ask you for help."
"The inside of me screams I shouldn't."
There was something in Jobert’s eyes he'd never seen before – if only he could read them.
Jobert's face contorted. "You saved my life, Lamont. I lay there, in the hospital, doped up. The pain was killing me, and I had no right to live. They told me I should be dead. I've still got a hole in my back big enough to take your fist." He leaned haggardly against the table. "And for what? In that bed I heard my heart throb and blood pound, asking, 'Why are you still a cop?' I listened to what my guts said. I don't need to go on being a cop until Lupo kills me."
"He may escape," Lamont pointed out.
"It doesn't matter. Let the Greek go. Let him rot in Italy."
"He killed innocent people. Bombed that building in Arles. That little girl, Marie Germaine, remember her? You swore you'd make him answer. You said – "
"The OAS is dead and the carcass rots." Jobert ‘s words were almost bitter. "The handful of them left are doing nothing." He turned back to the window. "You don't need me."
"Jobert, you're wrong," he objected. “I swear it, you’re wrong.”