passport and a quiet, discreet hideaway. And that price would certainly be a very high percentage of the proceeds of the hold-up…
Alex dwelt on his abiding hatred for men at ease in well-cut clothes, casually elegant, who knew how to talk to women. He himself was still a peasant, a rube that anybody could manipulate at will.
He wound up in a small suburban detached house at Livry-Gargan, one of the residential zones of Seine- Saint-Denis. After setting Alex up there, the legionnaire ordered him not to go out, and, much as at the farmhouse, he found a freezer stuffed to bursting, a bed, and a television set.
Alex made himself as comfortable as he could, using just one room. The neighboring houses were either unoccupied, in the process of being rented, or inhabited by bank employees with well-regulated lives who rose very early and returned only in the early evening. Moreover, the summer season meant that the Paris suburbs had been depopulated since the beginning of August. Alex took his ease, somewhat calmed by the emptiness that surrounded him. The legionnaire insisted absolutely on his remaining inside. Alex would not see his protector again until he returned to town in September, so Alex was to take things quietly until then. All he had to do was watch television, prepare frozen meals, take naps, and play solitaire…
3
Richard Lafargue was being visited by the sales representative of a Japanese pharmaceutical firm that had developed a new variety of the silicone commonly used in plastic surgery for breast augmentation. He listened attentively as the petty bureaucrat pitched his product, which according to him was easier to inject, easier to handle, and so forth. Medical records filled Lafargue’s office, and the walls were “decorated” with photographs showing the results of successful plastic surgery. The Japanese man was waving his arms about as he spoke.
The telephone rang. As Richard listened, a deep frown came over his face, and when he answered his voice was hollow and tremulous. He thanked the caller, then turned to the salesman and explained that he would have to terminate their meeting. They set up another time for the next day.
Lafargue doffed his lab coat and ran all the way to his car. Roger was waiting at the wheel, but he sent him home, preferring to drive himself.
He drove rapidly to the Paris ring road, then took the Normandy turnpike. He kept his foot down and leaned furiously on the horn whenever a driver did not get over into the slow lane quickly enough when he wanted to pass. In under three hours, he reached the psychiatric institution where Viviane was confined.
Once at the chateau, he leaped from the Mercedes and bounded up the front steps to the reception window. The receptionist went to find the psychiatrist who was treating Viviane.
Richard followed the doctor into the elevator. When they reached Viviane’s door, the psychiatrist nodded toward the plexiglass observation window, and Richard looked in.
Viviane was in crisis. She had ripped her smock, and she was stamping her feet and screaming, tearing at her body, which was already covered with bloody weals.
“How long?” Richard asked in a whisper,
“Since this morning. We’ve given her injections, tranquilizers. They should take effect soon.”
“She can’t be left like that! Double the dose. Poor kid…”
His hands were shaking uncontrollably. He braced himself on the door to Viviane’s room, pressing his forehead against it and biting his upper lip.
“Viviane, my baby! Viviane! Open the door—I’m going in.”
“That’s not a very good idea,” said the psychiatrist dubiously. “The presence of other people makes her even more agitated.”
Exhausted, heaving, crouched in a corner of the room, Viviane was raking her face with her fingernails, and, short as they were, she was drawing blood. Richard came in, sat down on the bed and, his voice no more than a murmur, called her by name. She began screaming again, but she stayed still. She was breathless, and her mad eyes rolled in every direction; she drew back her lips and whistled through her teeth. Little by little, still quite conscious, she settled down. Her breathing was more regular now, less labored. Lafargue was able to take her in his arms and get her into bed. Sitting next to her, he held her hand, stroked her brow, kissed her cheek. The psychiatrist had remained in the doorway, his hands in the pockets of his white coat; he came over to Richard, taking his arm.
“Come on, she should be left alone now.”
They went back to the ground floor and took a little walk together outside in the grounds.
“It’s just awful,” Lafargue mumbled.
“I know. You shouldn’t come so often. It doesn’t do any good, so why put yourself through it?”
“No! I must! I just have to come!”
The psychiatrist shrugged, mystified by Lafargue’s pressing need to witness such a pitiful spectacle.
“Yes, I really must come every time this happens. Promise you’ll let me know, all right?”
His voice broke; he was weeping. He shook the doctor’s hand and made his way to his car.
Richard drove faster than ever on the return journey to the house in Le Vesinet. The image of Viviane obsessed him. The vision of her battered and sullied body was a waking nightmare that tormented him always. Viviane! It had all started with a long-drawn-out scream audible above the music of the band, then Viviane had appeared with her clothes torn, her thighs streaming with blood, her eyes blank…
Lise had the day off. He could hear the piano up on the second floor. He burst out laughing, ran and pressed his mouth to the intercom and shouted as loud as he could.
“Good evening! Get dressed! You are going to entertain me tonight!”
The speakers in the dressing-room walls started to vibrate. Lafargue had turned the volume up as far as it would go. The racket was intolerable. Eve gasped. This damned sound system was the one perversion of Lafargue’s that she had not been able to cope with.
He found her slumped over the piano, her hands clamped to ears still hurting from the onslaught. He had stopped in the doorway, a smile playing about his lips and a glass of scotch in his hand.
She turned and looked at him in horror. She knew the meaning of the crises that made him erupt like this: in the last year Viviane had had three episodes of high agitation and self-mutilation. It was like salt rubbed in Richard’s wound, and he could not put up with the pain. His suffering had to be appeased, and Eve existed solely for this purpose.
“Let’s go, you piece of trash!”
He held out a glass of scotch, and when she hesitated to take it he grabbed the young woman by the hair and twisted her head back. He forced her to empty the glass in one gulp. Then he seized her wrist, dragged her all the way downstairs, and threw her bodily into the car.
It was eight o’clock when they entered the studio apartment in Rue Godot-de-Mauroy. Lafargue propelled Eve onto the bed by kicking her in the back.
“Get undressed! Fast!”
Eve stripped. He already had the closet open and was pulling out clothes, tossing them pell-mell onto the carpet. She stood facing him, crying softly. He held out the leather skirt, the boots, a white blouse. She put them on. He pointed to the telephone.
“Call Varneroy!”
Eve shuddered, gagging with disgust, but Richard’s expression was terrible, almost demonic. She was obliged to pick up the receiver and dial the number.
After a moment, Varneroy came on the line. He immediately recognized Eve’s voice. Richard stood behind her, ready to strike.
“My dear Eve,” burbled the caller in a nasal voice, “have you recovered from our last meeting? And you need money? How sweet of you to think of poor old Varneroy!”
Eve made the appointment. Thrilled, Varneroy would be there in half an hour. He was a crank that Eve had “recruited” one night on Boulevard des Capucines at the time when Richard was still forcing her to find customers
