The Erasers (5 page)

Seven tonight. A long day. Why do people always call him in
for things like this? Refuse? No, he has already accepted. He
will do what is asked of him one more time. And then? With
the other one, he had not had any choice! All he needed was
this new problem

The other one. It
’
s not so easy to get away from him. Wait.

Until seven tonight.

Why does Dupont have to get his friends mixed up in a mess like this! Marchat decides it
’
s
just nerve; and he is supposed
to seem pleased into the bargain! What about his wife? Why couldn
’
t she go? He has plenty of time to meet her; she or anyone else, until seven tonight.

About to leave the little white room, he turns back toward the wounded man:

“
And your wife—she knows about this?
”

“
The doctor has informed her of my death by letter. It was more correct. You know we haven
’
t met for a long time. She won
’
t even ask to see
‘
my remains.
’
On that score, everything
’
s going to be fine.
”

Evelyn. What is she doing now? Maybe she will come anyway, why not? A dead man
’
s not exactly her type, though. Who else might try? But no one will know which clinic. They just have to say it
’
s not this one. Until seven tonight.

Since they all agree, it
’
s perfect. Commissioner Laurent closes the dossier and lays it with satisfaction on the pile to the left. The case is closed. Personally, he has no desire to get involved with it.

The investigations he has had made already have not produced the slightest result. Many distinct fingerprints left all over the place, as though intentionally, have been picked up; they must belong to the murderer, but they do not match anything registered in the enormous police file. The other details collected have offered no suggestion as to what lead to follow. Nothing has been brought in by the usual informers either. Under such conditions, where do you start? It
’
s highly unlikely that the murderer belongs to the criminal circles of the port or the city: the file is too complete and the informers too numerous for a criminal to be able to escape their networks altogether.

Laurent knows this from long experience. At this hour he would normally have heard something already.

What then? A chance beginner? An amateur? A lunatic? Such cases are so rare; and besides, amateurs always leave traces and can be picked up right away. One solution, obviously, would be that they were dealing with someone coming from far away just to commit this murder, and then leaving immediately after. Yet his work seems a little too well done not to have required a good deal of preparation….

After all, if the central services want to take the whole thing over themselves, even to the point of taking away the victim
’
s body before an inquest, it
’
s all right with him. He is certainly not going to complain. For him, it
’
s as if the crime had never happened. After all, if Dupont had committed suicide it would have come down to exactly the same thing. The fingerprints could be anyone
’
s, and since no one alive saw his attacker
…

Better still: nothing at all has happened! A suicide still leaves behind a corpse; and now the corpse is vanishing without a word, and his superiors are asking him to keep out of it. Perfect!

No one has seen anything, heard anything. There is no victim. As for the murderer, he has fallen from the sky and must be far away by now, well on his way back to wherever he came from.

The scattered fragments, the two corks, the little piece of blackened wood: now they look like a human face, with the bit of orange peel for the mouth. The oil slick finishes off a grotesque clown
’
s face, a Punch-and-Judy doll.

Or else it is some legendary animal: the head, the neck, the breast, the front paws, a lion
’
s body with its long tail, and an eagle
’
s wings. The creature moves greedily toward a shapeless prey lying a little farther on. The corks and the piece of wood are still in the same place, but the face they formed a moment ago has completely disappeared. The greedy monster too. Nothing remains, on the canal
’
s surface, but a vague map of America; and even that only if charitably interpreted.

“
And suppose he turns the light on again before opening the door wide?
”
Bona, as usual, was not willing to admit the objection. There was nothing to argue about. Still, it turned out, as a matter of fact, as if Dupont had turned the light on again: even if Garinati had been able to turn out the light in plenty of time, suppose Dupont, coming in, had turned on the light again before pushing the door all the way open—it came down to the same thing. He would have been seen in the room with the light on, anyway.

Besides! Bona has made a mistake in any case: Since he—to whom the job had been entrusted—had not turned out the light.

Forgotten? Or done on purpose? Neither one nor the other. He was going to turn out the light; he was going to do it just at that moment. Dupont came back upstairs too soon. What time was it exactly? He did not act fast enough, that
’
s all; and all things considered, if he did not have time enough, it was still a mistake in calculation, a mistake of Bona
’
s. How is he going to fix that now?

Dupont was wounded, apparently. But not seriously enough to keep him from running away, getting out of danger; Garinati distinctly heard him turning the key in the lock. There was nothing else for him to do but leave. The gray carpet, the twenty-two steps, the shiny banister with its brass finial at the
end. Things lost a little of their consistency again. The revolver shot made such a funny noise; unreal; phony. It was the first time he had used a silencer. Ping! Like an air pistol; not loud enough to scare a fly. And right afterward everything was filled with cotton.

Maybe Bona knows already. From the papers? It was too
late for the morning papers; and who would bother to report
this nonexistent crime?
“
Attempted murder: a marauder fired
a silent pistol at a harmless professor
“
Bona always knows.

Coming home the night before, Garinati found a note in his chief
’
s handwriting.
“
Why didn
’
t you come afterward, the way we
’
d planned? I have a job for you: they
’
re sending a special agent. A Monsieur Wallas who
’
ll take a room in the theater of operations. You should have come this morning! Everything
’
s going fine. I
’
ll expect you Tuesday morning at ten. J.B.
”
It was as if he had already heard about the success of the job. The fact is, that he does not imagine that it could have failed. When he has made up his mind about something, it can only happen the way he has planned.
“
You should have come this morning.
”
No! It
’
s time for him to come now.

He has not had much trouble catching up with him, this Wallas, but he missed him, him too. He
’
ll find him again easily. But for what? To tell him what? Early this morning, methodically looking for him in the neighborhood, Garinati kept feeling he had something urgent to tell him; he no longer knows what it was. As if he had been told to help him in his task.

All right, first of all he would have to decide how he was going to make up for yesterday
’
s bad luck. Rendezvous at ten. Bona attached a lot of importance to the day and the time when Dupont was supposed to have been killed. Too bad; for once he will have to put up with it. And the others Garinati does not know, the whole organization around Bona, even above him, that huge machine—is it goin
g to be stopped just because of
him? He will explain that it was not his fault, that he did not have time, that it did not work out the way it had been planned. But nothing is lost: tomorrow, tonight maybe, Dupont will be dead.

Yes.

He will go back and wait for him behind the spindle-tree hedge, in the study full of books and papers. He will go back there freely, clearheaded and revived, careful,
“
weighing each of his footsteps.
”
On the desk is lying the cube of stone with its rounded corners, its faces polished by wear….

The ruined tower lit up by the storm.

Twenty-one wooden steps, one white step.

The tiles of the hallway.

Three slices of ham on a plate, through the half-open door.

The dining room shutters are closed; the kitchen shutters too, a faint gleam filtering through their slats.

He walks on the lawn to avoid making the gravel crunch on the path, which he could see because it was paler than the two flower beds on either side. The study window, in the middle of the second story, is brightly lighted. Dupont is still up there.

The buzzer that makes no noise, at the gate.

Five to seven.

The endless Rue des Arpenteurs, invaded by the smell of herring and cabbage soup, from the dark suburbs and the muddy checkerboard of paths between the miserable shacks.

At nightfall, Garinati has wandered around, waiting until it
’
s time, among this filthy vegetation of latrines and barbed wire. He has left Bona
’
s written instructions, long since learned by heart, in his room.

These papers—exact sketches of the garden and the house, minute descriptions of the premises, details of the operations to be performed—these papers are not in Bona
’
s handwriting; he has written out only certain items concerning the murder proper. As for the rest, Garinati does not know who the author is; who the authors are, rather, for several people must have gone into the house to make the necessary observations there, discover the arrangement of furniture, study the domestic habits, and even the behavior of each board underfoot. And someone has silenced the buzzer at the gate during the afternoon.

The little glass door has made a deep creak. In his rush to escape, Garinati has opened it a little wider than he should have.

It still remains to be seen if
…

Go back without waiting. The old deaf woman is alone now. Walk back up there and find out for himself. The room being in darkness, find out at exactly what moment the unexpected hand turns on the light.

Anyone else, in his place
…
Unexpected. His own hand.

The murderer always returns

And if Bona finds out? He shouldn
’
t be hanging around here either! Bona. Bona
…
Garinati has straightened up. He starts across the bridge.

It looks as though it were going to snow.

Anyone else in his place, weighing each of his footsteps, would come, clearheaded and free, to carry out his task of ineluctable justice.

The cube of gray lava.

The buzzer silenced.

The street that smells of cabbage soup.

The muddy paths that disappear, far away, among the rusty corrugated iron.

Wallas.

“
Special agent…
”