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.’
3
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.
4
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.’
