The apartment where he lived was unofficially his but in fact it was owned by one of his family’s companies. Even the furniture had been chosen – tastefully – by a designer paid by his mother from among the vast choice available at budget prices from Ikea and similar stores. The reason was simple. Everyone knew that Russell would have sold anything of value he had in his possession and the money would have gone on gambling.
That had happened often enough in the past.
Cars, watches, paintings, carpets.
Everything.
With destructive rage and maniacal precision.
Russell sat down on one of the couches. He could have phoned Miriam or one of the other models he’d been seeing lately, but having them around meant that after a while he’d have to put a little white powder on the table. And he’d also have to have the money to take them out.
Or rather, a name.
Ziggy.
He’d met that colourless little man a few years earlier. He’d been one of his brother’s informants, someone who sometimes gave him tips about interesting things happening in the city, the kind of things he defined as ‘over the edge’, which were good to know about because they might turn out to be stories. Since Robert’s death they’d kept in touch, though for very different reasons. One of these was that, in his brother’s memory, Ziggy supplied him with what he needed and gave him credit. He even helped him out with a few small loans when, as was the case now, he was in a tight corner. Russell didn’t know why Ziggy was so fond of him and trusted him like that. But it was a given, and when necessary he took advantage of it.
Unfortunately Ziggy didn’t use a cellphone, and getting in touch with him usually took a while. After a bit of nervous pacing around the living room and bedroom, he came to a decision. He went down to the garage and took out the car, which he drove rarely and reluctantly. Maybe because it was a cheap Nissan that wasn’t even registered in his name. He checked there was enough gas in the tank to get there and back. He knew where Ziggy lived, and he set off for Brooklyn. The journey was a kind of blur. He saw the city speed past without seeing it, paying it back for the fact that it didn’t see him.
His lip hurt and his eyes smarted, in spite of his sunglasses.
He crossed the bridge, ignoring the skylines of Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights, and plunged into neighbourhoods where ordinary people lived ordinary lives. Places that had no illusions any more, places where nothing ever worked out. Places roughly drawn in the faded colours of reality, where he often came because it was here that he found the secret gambling joints he liked to visit – it was here that anyone could find what they needed.
You just needed to have few scruples and a lot of money.
He reached Ziggy’s place almost without realizing it. He parked just past the building, and after taking a few steps found himself pushing open the entrance door and descending the stairs that led to the basement. There were no doormen here, and the entryphone was a formality nobody bothered with any more. At the foot of the stairs he turned left. The walls were industrial brick, hurriedly painted in a colour that must once have been beige, and was now covered in stains. There was a smell of boiled cabbage and damp in the air. He turned the corner, and saw a line of faded brown doors in front of him. Someone was coming out of the one he was heading for, on the right-hand side towards the end of the corridor. A man in a green military jacket with a blue hood pulled down over his head, who moved quickly and resolutely to the end of the corridor and disappeared around the opposite corner.
Russell didn’t pay much attention to him, thinking only that he was one of the people Ziggy came into contact with every day in his line of business. When he reached Ziggy’s door, he found it ajar. He pushed the handle and his eyes took in the room and then everything happened as if he was seeing things frame by frame on a Moviola.
An image of Ziggy on his knees on the floor with his shirt all stained with blood, clutching at a chair and trying to pull himself to his feet
an image of himself approaching him and Ziggy’s bonyhand reaching out and clutching his arm
Ziggy supporting himself on the edge of the table and reaching out his hand towards the printer
himself not understanding
Ziggypressing a button with his finger and leaving a red mark on it
himself listening without hearing as the printed sheetrustled onto the tray
Ziggywith a photograph in his hand
himself terrified
and finally Ziggy convulsing and drawing his last breath and blood spurting from his open mouth. He fell to the floor with a dull thud and Russell found himself standing in the middle of the room, holding a black and white photograph and a printed sheet of paper, both stained red.
And in his eyes the image of his brother lying in the dustcovered in blood.
Moving like a puppet, hardly aware of what he was doing, he stuffed the sheet of paper and the photograph into his pocket. Then, with the logic and instinct of an animal, he fled, leaving reason behind him, in that place that smelled of boiled cabbage and damp. He reached his car without seeing anybody. He set off, forcing himself not to drive too quickly in order not to attract attention. He drove as if in a trance until his breathing and heartbeat returned to normal. At that point he stopped the car in a side street and started thinking. He told himself that, in running away, he had clearly made an instinctive choice, but at the same time he was certain it was the wrong choice. He should have called the police. But that would have meant having to explain why he was there and how he happened to know Ziggy. And God alone knew what kind of trouble Ziggy had got himself into. In addition, it was quite possible that the man in the green jacket was the person who had knifed the poor bastard. The thought that he might, for whatever reason, decide to come back was pretty scary. Russell had no desire to join Ziggy lying dead on the floor.
No. Better to pretend that nothing had happened. Nobody had seen him, he hadn’t left any traces, and the neighbourhood was full of people who minded their own business and certainly weren’t crazy about talking to the police.
As he was thinking and trying to decide what line to follow, he realized that the right sleeve of his jacket was stained with blood. He emptied his pockets onto the passenger seat, checked that nobody was about, then got out of the car and threw the garment in a dumpster. With a touch of self-deprecation that surprised him, given the situation, he told himself that, at the rate of two jackets thrown away per day, he would soon have serious problems with his wardrobe.