Black Diamond - Martin Walker [77]
“I know who you are, monsieur,” the driver said. “You can leave your bags with me. I’ll put them in the back.”
“I’ll need to work on the books in the plastic bag while we drive,” Bruno said.
The driver nodded and looked at his watch as Bruno went inside the mairie and took a glass of wine from the table at the door. The crowd seemed even bigger than it had been when he left it. He saw J-J looming above the sea of heads and edged across to say he was ready to go.
“The brigadier was looking for you,” J-J said. “Someone he wanted you to meet. He’s over by the big window.”
Bruno struggled through the crowd again, holding his glass of wine above his head to prevent it from being jostled, and found himself squeezed against the burly shape of Pons the sawmill owner who was talking business with the baron.
“There you are, Bruno,” said the baron. “I think I preferred our private send-off for Hercule to this zoo.”
“You know the mairie, Bruno,” said Pons in his brusque way. “How long will it take me to get a construction permit to turn my sawmill into residences?”
“A very long time,” said Bruno. “This mayor won’t be helpful while you’re running against him. And because you’re running against him he could well lose and be replaced by your son. From what I’ve seen of him, your son is not likely to be very helpful.”
“But what if I apply to build green housing?” Pons said. “What if I were to make it an ecological project, with solar panels, geothermal heating, full insulation, carbon neutral—all the fashionable bells and whistles.”
“Then you’d probably get your permit,” Bruno replied, “along with a corruption scandal in the press that will say you have a deal that could make you rich, and he’s your heir. At that point, the rest of the council would turn very hostile very fast. There’s already some grumbling in town about the tax breaks you’re getting for opening a new sawmill in St. Félix after you closed ours.”
“That’s exactly what I told him. What would make it work would be the subsidies we could get for a project like that,” said the baron. “But the moment you apply for public funds, there’d be trouble. That’s why I told Pons that he should sell the land to me.”
“Even then you could have trouble,” Bruno said. “Industrial land that’s going to be rezoned for housing needs an environmental damage survey. Those cost a lot, and a cleanup can cost even more. And no mayor could get around that regulation, even if he wanted to.”
“You wait till the elections, Bruno,” grunted Pons. “Then you’ll see what mayors can and can’t do.”
“Since you raise the topic, why in hell are you running when you know you’ll just take votes from the mayor and probably make your son the winner?” the baron asked.
“What makes you say that? I’m going to win, not my damned son and not that wimp Mangin, who spends all his time trying to appease the Reds and the Greens and doesn’t really know which side he’s on.”
“You haven’t got a chance, but you’ll take a few hundred votes from the mayor,” the baron said. “Anyone would have to say objectively that you’re trying to put your son’s Red-Green coalition into power.”
“Va te faire enculer, Baron. I’ve got a lot of support and I’m going to win this thing and if people like you come to their senses, I’ll win by a landslide. Anyway, I thought you’d become a friend of my son, Bruno. I hear you’ve been getting free dinners at that fancy restaurant,” Pons said with a sneer.
Bruno’s mouth fell open in disbelief, but his jaw clenched. If there had been room to move his arm, Bruno would have been tempted to punch the sneer off Pons’s face, but the baron’s hand was on his arm.
“You’re out of line,” the