The First Fingerprint by Xavier-Marie Bonnot Page B

at around one o’clock.”
    â€œAnd then?”
    â€œAnd then you quietly finish your lunch and go home. I’ll call you. Want a drink?”
    â€œSure, a beer.”
    Tête and Lolo raked over a few childhood memories. They talked about the Endoume football club, in which Lolo had been goalkeeper and Mourain the left winger.
    â€œYou know, they’re having a really good year. If things go on like this, they’ll end up replacing l’Olympique!”
    â€œBe serious, Lolo, people have been saying that for the past thirty years. With O.M. it’s different. Can you imagine the Endoume players with their broken legs on the pitch at the Vélodrome? You know damn well they wouldn’t last ten minutes.”
    â€œDon’t talk shit, Gérard. This year, they’re playing really well. I reckon they’ll get promoted to the second division. You’ll see.”
    â€œYou can always hope. But if the Endoume players are that good, why don’t they go and play for O.M.? It’s because a whole bunch of them are called but only a few are chosen. And O.M. are professionals, not a load of shitty amateurs like we’ve got here.”
    â€œCome on, Gérard, we’re not going to fight about it, are we? Do you want to make a bet?”
    â€œNo, I never bet.”
    â€œâ€™Cos you’re shitting yourself?”
    â€œNope, it’s just a principle.”
    The last time Tête had betted on anything, he had ended the evening at police headquarters before spending two years in Les Baumettes. The bet was as follows:
    â€œI’ll bet you’re too much of a chicken to get your piece out and make some music.”
    â€œYou wanna bet?” Tête had replied.
    He had got out of the car, crossed the road, opened the door of a jeweler’s, drawn his gun and pointed it at the manager. Unfortunately, a hysterical customer had started screaming. As the jeweler’s was only ten meters from the local station, the police had shown up within a minute. That was the bet: to hold up a jewelry store ten meters away from a commissariat. Only Tête had been daft enough to do anything like that. Age had taught him that he was no genius and now he hadsettled for being a lookout for the big boys. Sometimes he did a bit of grassing too, to keep himself out of Les Baumettes for as long as possible.
    He ordered a final beer and picked up
La Provence
to see what had been going on. On the local news page, he saw a photograph of a woman.
P ROFESSOR C HRISTINE A UTRAN F OUND M URDERED I N A C REEK
    â€¦ according to police sources, Christine Autran was hanged then thrown into the water. The investigation has been entrusted to the murder squad under the direction of Commissaire Paulin …
    Tête peered more closely at the black-and-white photograph.
    â€œJesus Christ!” he said. He looked up at Lolo, whose wife was yelling at him down the phone. The landlord was not looking in his direction.
    â€œJesus fucking Christ!” he repeated, then closed the paper.
    He had just recognized the woman he had tailed for days on boulevard Chave.

9.
    De Palma passed the night of Saturday to Sunday in the murky depths of Le Valparaiso, a nightclub by the port—thongs and salsa guaranteed—which had been opened recently by an old friend from the drug squad. He’d been thrown out of the squad after some dodgy business about broken seals on the doors of a heroin lab in Martigues.
    At 6:00 a.m., his head full of moritos, congas and the loud laughter of lewd women, he’d had enough of ogling the young waitress. He went out into the emerging dawn and drove home slowly, trying to get his head together. Soon he was driving along the smarter side of boulevard Michelet.
    De Palma recognized her from a distance. For a good twenty years she had been delighting night owls at the foot of La Maison du Fada, Le Corbusier’s dazzling construction—now a desirable