Paris Noir - Aurelien Masson [56]
The days went by and the Place des Vosges was looking hard in the direction of Versailles. And to think that I’d known that square as a little kid, a real rough place then. With the opening of the Picasso Museum everything had changed. Consequently, the Spanish paint-splasher had pushed the whole area toward the classical era, chic, conservative, with a platinum checkbook. Even if the joint where I work, my Bour-gogne, had always been classy. It used to be a gem in a rugged setting. Now it was a gem among other gems. With Jack Lang practically living above it.
It was Joseph, who worked nights at the Elephant du Nil by the Saint-Paul metro station, who reopened the hunt. There was this old woman, a funny one who hung out at his bar every morning; she came from the rue de Fourcy senior housing. She’d attack her first glass of white wine and lemonade at 10 in the morning and get steadily soaked until noon. She’s soaking up her coffin, the owner would say. A real chatterbox. A nasty one too, angry with the entire world.
We went there the following Saturday as a delegation, a group of union representatives. And we sure weren’t disappointed. It was good old Marthe, the garbage lady of number 12, the one who knew Monsieur Girard—Marcel to his friends, Zatopek to us. A poor devil. Retired from the railroads, gone half-crazy after he’d pulled parts of a woman who’d been run over by a freight train car. Crazy, for sure, but only halfway, completely with it at other times. Together with her, Zatopek had been the only one to truly fight the real estate jackals. He owned his small two-room apartment in the back of the courtyard and screamed that he’d only go feet first, they wouldn’t mess with him. The old guy was borderline straightjacket. And in excellent health; he even went running, can you believe it?
“Where does Monsieur Girard live now?”
“What do you want with Marcel?”
“Nothing. We don’t see him on Place des Vosges anymore so we’re worried. He was a friend, an acquaintance.”
“Oh really? Did he talk to you?”
“Not really. He’d smile. We liked him.”
She observed us, her glass of white wine in hand. With her blue smock, her red cheeks, and her eyes an opaque white because of cataracts. Cute as hell, like an old enamel coffeepot. Which could burn your hands if you didn’t watch out.
“Why are you worried?”
“We don’t know. That’s why we’d like to know where he is. So we can stop worrying.”
She scrutinized us for a long time. Time enough to empty her glass and order another.
“One morning he wasn’t there anymore. He’d left during the night.”
“He moved?”
“I don’t know. Anyway, he left everything. Two days later, two guys from Emmaus came to load up his stuff. Nothing much. Rickety furniture, some old things, borderline homeless stuff. He must have taken everything worth something with him. Clothes probably.”
“Did he have family elsewhere, like, I don’t know, in the provinces?”
“I don’t think so. Besides, he was a Parisian, a real Parisian, a Parisian down to his toes.”
And so on. She kept talking for quite a while, she couldn’t let go of us. She felt important at last, and that pleased her. Late in life, almost at death’s door, she’d found an audience. But for us it was just padding. We let her talk, we had the basics. Zatopek had suddenly disappeared.
A bit too suddenly.
That Saturday, as we prepared to leave rue Saint-Antoine—already overrun with leisured people stopping every twenty meters to study the restaurant menus and real estate ads—we decided to change our approach. We sat down around some blazing hot pizzas and very quickly, without anyone taking the lead, decided to kick into high gear. No one dared to openly express the negative thoughts that had just entered our heads.