The Kill - Emile Zola [104]
The Charonne deal was proving to be a stroke of fortune, though how it would turn out in the end still worried him. Larsonneau, for all his dazzling linen, smiled in a way he found unpleasant. The expropriation agent was only a go-between, a front whose complicity he bought with a commission of ten percent of all future profits. Yet even though his associate had not invested a penny in the deal, and Saccard, after providing him with the funds to build the music hall, had taken every possible precaution—options, undated letters, antedated receipts—he nevertheless felt an obscure foreboding, a presentiment of treachery. He suspected his accomplice of intending to blackmail him with the fake inventory that remained in his possession, which was the only reason Saccard had cut him in on the deal.
The two confederates therefore exchanged a hearty handshake. Larsonneau addressed Saccard as “chief.” Deep down, he admired his associate’s high-wire exploits as a speculator and followed his performances avidly. The idea of cheating such a partner appealed to him as a rare and piquant pleasure. He was toying with a plan that remained vague because he was still unsure of how to use the weapon he had in his possession without injuring himself. In any case, he sensed that he was at the mercy of his former colleague. Carefully prepared inventories listed land and buildings already estimated at nearly two million francs but in fact worth only a quarter that much, yet all these assets would be swallowed up in a colossal bankruptcy unless the expropriation fairy touched them with her magic wand. According to preliminary plans that the two confederates had been able to consult, the new boulevard—which was intended to link the artillery range at Vincennes 1 to the Prince Eugène Barracks and thus grant the gunners access to central Paris without obliging them to move through the Faubourg Saint-Antoine—would claim part of their land. Yet there was still a danger that the route would only skirt their property and that the ingenious music-hall speculation would fail on account of its very impudence. In that case Larsonneau would be left with a delicate situation on his hands. Despite his necessarily secondary role, the risk did nothing to alleviate his distress at the thought of collecting a paltry ten percent on such a colossal theft, which would run into millions. At such times he felt a desperate itch to reach out and lop off a slice for himself.
Saccard had not even wanted Larsonneau to lend money to his wife, preferring to amuse himself by staging an elaborate melodrama that appealed to his weakness for complicated chicanery.
“No, no, my friend,” he had said with his Provençal accent, which he exaggerated whenever he wanted to add zest to a joke, “let’s not mix up your accounts with mine. . . . You’re the only man in Paris to whom I’ve sworn never to owe anything.”
Larsonneau contented himself with hinting to Saccard that his wife was a bottomless pit. He advised him never to give her another cent so that she would be forced to sell them her share of the property at once. He would have preferred to deal with Saccard alone. From time to time he tested the waters, going so far as to say, with the weary, indifferent air of a man of the world, “You know, I really need to put my files in order. . . . Your wife scares me, old man. I wouldn’t want the authorities to get hold of certain documents I have in my office.”
Saccard was not a man to put up with such insinuations patiently, especially when he was well acquainted with the cold and meticulous order that Larsonneau maintained in his office. Cunning and energetic, the little man reacted with every fiber of his being against the fears that the smooth-talking usurer in the yellow gloves sought to arouse in him. The worst of it was that the thought of a scandal sent shivers up his spine. He