Chapter 4
Detective-Inspector Pierre Raimond cut himself another piece of Munster. With the air of a man enjoying something he really liked for the last time, he dabbed the soft, runny cheese into a little pile of carraway seeds.
His young wife sat opposite watching him with a smile. A smile which covered the anxiety which gripped her heart like the premonition of death.
Raimond looked up at her over savoring the mouthful of cheese.
"Those seeds make all the difference," he said, and, without altering his tone at all, added: "There's nothing to worry about, Michele. It's not much more than a routine patrol."
Her beautiful, pale face with its aristocratic air of determination looked less sure and determined than he'd ever seen it before. She'd eaten hardly anything and seemed almost unable to do anything but smile at him weakly. He reached across the table and took her hand. There were tears in her eyes.
"It's nothing, darling," he said. "There's really little danger."
"Oh, Pierre," she said. "Whatever you say, please don't treat me like a child. There is danger. Everybody knows there is danger. They're well armed and they wouldn't hesitate to shoot anyone who was after them."
"But I only have to do the location work, darling," he said. "I find out where they are and how to get them and then the security police move in and take over when the shooting starts."
"Darling, I wish they'd given the job to someone else."
"Now, is that any way to speak of an honor that's been done your husband?"
He grinned at her cheerfully and she smiled back wanly and nibbled at a piece of bread as if she didn't even realize what she was eating.
Pierre Raimond was young for a detective-inspector. He was a detective-inspector because he was one of the most brilliant young men in the force-and this job of rooting out the NLF in Paris, of discovering who and where they were, had been entrusted to him because he was the best man for the job. It was, of course, a highly dangerous job and he knew that his wife knew this. But he went on minimizing it just to show that he didn't consider it to be anything too tough for him. As long as he didn't show any anxiety it would to some small extent prevent her own from overcoming her.
He wiped his fingers on his napkin and dabbed his mouth. It was a tough job all right. ' The situation had been getting worse and worse and there was no hope of improvement until the hard core of Algerian nationalists in the city were rounded up and put out of harm's way. There was reason to believe they were quite few in number, the real fanatics, but their fanaticism and the manner in which they terrorized the rest of the Muslim population in Paris made them a force to be reckoned with.
In recent weeks more Algerians had been killed in the city than had lost their lives for several months before: those who wouldn't pay their contribution towards nationalist funds, those who wanted to remain French, one after another they'd been shot up in bars, knifed in their shabby hotel rooms, found dumped on wasteland on the outskirts of Paris. And not only Algerians. Passers-by had been wounded in broad daylight through happening to be in a particular spot at the particular time when somebody walking nearby or drinking at their elbow had been scheduled to return to his Maker.
And, more and more serious from the point of view of law and order and the confidence of the civilian population, no fewer than six policemen who had got involved in hunting down the killers had themselves been shot and killed.
Large-scale manhunts and ratissages had produced no solid result. Hundreds of Algerians had been taken in for questioning. Police patrols had been doubled in affected areas and a prime de risque had been agreed for police working in dangerous spots.
But the killers and their leaders remained at large, hidden in a veil of silence. Those who knew would say nothing, afraid of revenge. Others who might have given information knew nothing worth telling.
So Pierre Raimond, former parachutist lieutenant in Algeria, where he'd mastered Arabic, and now bright young member of the metropolitan police, was to be given an opportunity to root out information which his colleagues had failed to wring out of months of questioning suspects and believed sympathizers.
He left his wife pouring the coffee and went through to the bedroom of their small, comfortable apartment near Raspail. When he reappeared he was dressed like a typical lorry driver, porter, working man. There remained about him no vestige of his profession.
He sipped his coffee and watched his tall, lovely wife clearing away the debris from their meal. She had long, perfect legs and trim, oval-shaped buttocks with a slim torso not overburdened by neat, high breasts. He wished he could stay with her tonight. He always had these feelings when off on some mission, always the thought that after all one never knew when the end was coming.
When he'd finished his coffee he stood up and looked round the familiar room. His wife came towards him and put her arms around him, her head against his neck. He held her to him, feeling tender and wanting to rid her mind of the worry he knew filled it.
"Darling-don't take any unnecessary risks," she begged. "Leave that to the others. You said you only have to find them."
He gave a little laugh to reassure her.
"I told you it's not even dangerous," he said. "There's nothing to worry about at all. I'll be back in the morning and I'll probably have spent my whole night just sitting around in bars."
She made a brave attempt at humor.
"Well, don't go to bed with any strange whores," she said.
He tipped her head back and kissed her hard.
"They couldn't hope to measure up to you," he said.
"Well, don't try to find out," she said.
He patted her bottom gently, feeling the hard round summit under his hand, wanting her now, but having to go.
He drove in his little Simca through the tree-shaded boulevard, past the brightly-lit restaurants of St. Germaindes-Pres where conversation was endless in the cafes and each elegant woman tried to show a little more of her figure than her neighbour.
Over the great, moving chasm which was the Seine, muddy and fast-flowing from earlier floods. Up the broad sweep of the Avenue de l'Opera where all the windows were alive with light and posters beckoned to lazy islands and bullfights and Roman sunshine and temples in the Far East. In the Cafe de la Paix the tourists were watching the steady flow of traffic and reading La Vie Parisienne.
He stopped with the lights, proceeded with the flow of this traffic, waited for pedestrians to cross. He might have been going to visit a friend.
Soon he was moving slightly uphill amidst myriad bars and clubs where a lemonade cost 400 francs and platinum blondes leaned on the door with breasts the equal of Jayne Mansfield's and twice as showing. Inside, as doors swung open and shut quickly letting in a shirt-sleeved GI, there was glimpse of strong-thighed negresses at the bar.
These little streets were jammed with cars and he had difficulty finding somewhere to park. He left the car and walked up onto the main boulevard, dominated by the lights of the Moulin Rouge and several large cinemas. He turned right towards Chapelle and the comparative darkness. Underneath his left arm he could feel the reassuring coldness of his little automatic. He hoped it wouldn't be necessary to use it.
For half a mile or so he followed the overhead metro, a dark, giant scaffolding running along the centre of the broad boulevard with every so often a little train running with rumbling brightness along it like some noisy glowworm.
The bars became gloomier and shabbier and both streets and cafes swarmed with a larger proportion of Arabs than any other nationality. The monotonous, strange wail of Arab music came from doorways and he passed policemen walking slowly and carefully in groups of three, watched by ugly prostitutes sitting hopelessly in the doorways of dim, cheap hotels.
As he passed the bars he glanced in through the smoky windows. Some were almost empty, others crowded almost exclusively with Algerians. He chose one from which music came and in which he could see a group of men and women nudging a pinball machine ajid pushed open the door.