Paris Noir by Aurélien Masson Page A

lives there. An apartment on Place Franz Liszt, beneath Saint-Vincent-de-Paul and the charming little Cavaillé-Coll park. Not very far from where Counselor Morland is almost done spilling the top of his skull into the Dilettante, where Berthet rushes out of the carnage scene and heads toward the Gare du Nord.
    Hélène Bastogne is an investigative journalist, and like all investigative journalists Hélène Bastogne is being manipulated. Hélène Bastogne does not know this, but even if Hélène Bas-togne did suspect it, Hélène Bastogne doesn’t give a damn because Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
    The solution would be a novel, thinks Hélène Bastogne. There is a blue sky out there. A novel in which Hélène Bas-togne would tell everything. The blue November sky and the wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park.
    Hélène Bastogne concentrates on the cock inside her. A novel would be the solution for a number of problems. But Hélène Bastogne does not know the names of the trees. Hé-lène Bastogne regrets this. Actually, a novel would solve nothing. Hélène Bastogne feels the cock inside her getting soft.
    Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
    Let’s hope he doesn’t come before she does. The cock belongs to Lover #2. Lover #1 is a graying publisher from rue de Fleurus. Lover #2 is his editor-in-chief. Lover #2 has come to check on Hélène Bastogne’s work. Confessions of a secret service guy. Lover #2 has promised to take her to a new bar on Canal Saint-Martin. Hélène Bastogne doesn’t know the name of the bar. Hélène Bastogne doesn’t know anything right now, except her oncoming pleasure.
    A novel. A novel that would speak of pleasure, of the wind in the trees whose names she does not know. Of the bars along Canal Saint-Martin, of the 10th arrondissement, of Lover #2’s prick, Lover #1’s prick too.
    Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
    Lover #2’s prick is regaining some strength. Or perhaps it’s because Hélène Bastogne, who is riding it, has slightly changed her angle. And that’s better for him. Don’t go soft, please, don’t go soft.
    Explosive confessions, as they say. The guy came to the paper two weeks ago. The guy was wearing a beautiful Armani suit. Forty-five at most. Soft eyes, deep voice, close-cropped hair. The guy began to talk.
    Wind in the trees, wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park, still. The top of the one Hélène Bastogne sees through the large window is moving to the same rhythm as Lover #2’s cock.
    Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
    The guy might have been a good lover too. The guy said really interesting things in this preelection period. From the Ivory Coast to the riots in the projects just outside Paris, the true, bloody poetry of secret intelligence.
    Names too.
    Then he left. Then he came back the next day. And he said really interesting things again, the game with the dormant Islamist cells, the journalists abducted in Iraq, and he gave names again, and numbers.
    Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
    Things come and go, which is normal in a consumerist society. The wind in the trees of Cavaillé-Coll park, Lover #2’s cock inside her, the confessions of the secret agent in the Armani suit, everything comes and goes in Hélène Bastogne’s world. A novel to say that. But Hélène Bastogne wouldn’t know how. Hélène Bastogne could almost kick herself for not knowing.
    Hélène Bastogne needs redemption. Quickly. Hélène Bastogne needs to come. Quickly. Like everyone else, she no longer believes in God. Perhaps a novel. But Hélène Bastogne wouldn’t know how. To begin with:
    she doesn’t know the names of trees;
    she doesn’t know how to pray;
    she doesn’t know if the spy hasn’t conned her a little;
    she doesn’t know if she can write.
    Hélène Bastogne is going to come.
    Yet Hélène Bastogne is no fool. Lover #2 is an editor-in-chief first and foremost. When he listened to the MP3 recording of the operative, he found it so wild that he danced