“Just like this?”
“Yes, just like that.”
On Lafargue’s bed, with Lafargue safely locked in the wife’s rooms, Alex lounged for several hours. He would have liked a drink, but that was not allowed. About six o’clock, he went to get the surgeon. He was tense: the idea of being on an operating table had always frightened him. Richard reassured him and got him to undress. Reluctantly, Alex parted with his Colt.
“Don’t forget your wife, Doc,” muttered Alex as he lay down.
Richard turned the large spotlight on. Its white light was dazzling. Alex blinked. After a moment, Lafargue appeared at his side in white coat and surgical mask. Alex smiled with relief.
“Are we ready?” asked Lafargue.
“Ready. And no tricks—or you’ll never see your wife again.”
Richard went and closed the door of the operating room, took a syringe, and came back over to Alex.
“This injection will make you relax. Then, in about fifteen minutes, I’m going to put you to sleep.”
“Yeah. But no tricks!”
The tip of the needle slid delicately into a vein. Alex saw the surgeon above him, smiling.
“I said no tricks, okay?”
Suddenly, he was asleep. In his last second of consciousness, Alex sensed that something was not quite right.
Richard tore off the mask, extinguished the spotlight, and hoisted the inert Alex onto his shoulder. Opening the door to the operating room, he went out into the passage and staggered under the weight to another cellar door.
After turning the key in the lock, he carried Alex over to the moss-covered wall. The sofa and armchairs were still in place, along with various belongings of Vincent’s. He chained Alex to the wall, tightening the shackles by a few links. He went back to the operating room for a needle and catheter, which he attached to a vein in Alex’s forearm; he knew that once Alex woke up he would still be able, chained as he was, to wriggle enough to prevent him from administering another shot. Lafargue was quite sure that this guy, desperate and wanted by the police, would find the strength to resist “classic” forms of torture, at least for a time. And time was something Richard did not have. For now, he waited.
Tossing his scrubs on the floor, he went upstairs for a bottle of scotch and a glass. Then he came back down and settled into an armchair facing Alex. He had administered a low dose of the anesthetic, and his prisoner was bound to awake before long.
2
Alex was slow to come around. Lafargue waited, watching his reactions. He got up and slapped him hard to hasten the return of consciousness.
Alex saw his chains, the cellar cluttered with furniture, the weird trompe-l’oeil windows, sea, and mountains. He sniggered. It was all over. He wouldn’t ever say where that bitch was. Not even if he was tortured. Death didn’t matter to him now.
The doctor watched him from the armchair, sipping from a glass. It was whisky—the bottle was by him on the floor. The bastard! He had made a complete fool of him; he’d been laughing at him all along. But you had to say it—he was quite a guy, he had never lost his cool—a real con artist. And, yes, Alex had to admit it, he himself was truly pathetic.
“So that’s it, is it? Eve is in a cellar, chained to a radiator. Alone.”
“She’s going to croak. You’ll never find out where she is.” Alex was jabbering.
“Did you brutalize her?”
“No. I wanted to jump her bones, but I decided to put it off till later. I guess I should have done it, huh? Mind you, nobody will ever fuck her now. Never. Where she is, no one will show up for at least two weeks. She’s bound to die of hunger and thirst. And it’s your fault. Maybe one day you’ll see her skeleton. Was she a good lay, at least?”
“Be quiet,” said Lafargue softly, through clenched teeth. “You’re going to tell me where she is.”
“No way, asshole. Cut me up into little pieces if you want. I won’t tell you a thing. I’m for it, I know that. If you don’t kill me, the cops will get me. I’ve had it, and I don’t give a shit.”
“How wrong you are, you poor fool. You’ll talk, I promise you.”
Richard went over to Alex, who spat in his face. The surgeon had fastened Alex’s arm to the wall, palm facing outward; the wrist was chained, and long strips of extra-strong packing tape stuck to the concrete prevented the slightest movement of the limb.
“Look here,” said Richard.
He pointed to the catheter already inserted into Alex’s vein. Alex began to sweat and to sob. The bastard was going to get the better of him after all. By using a drug.
Richard showed him a syringe, which he attached to the catheter. Gently, he pressed the plunger. Alex screamed, and tugged vainly on his chains.
The fluid was inside him, flowing through his veins. A wave of nausea washed over him, then his mind grew more and more fuzzy. He stopped shouting and wriggling. As his eyes glazed over, he could still see Lafargue’s smiling face and mean expression.
“What’s your name?”
Alex’s head had subsided onto his chest, but Richard grabbed his matted hair and wrenched it upright again.
“Barny. Alex Barny.”
“Do you remember my wife?”
“Yes.”
A very few minutes later, Alex gave up the address of the house in Livry-Gargan.
A breath of air is making its way across the floor. You twist, and turn on your side, and press your cheek to the ground so as to relish this trace of coolness. Your throat is painful, dry. The adhesive tape across your lips tugs at the skin.
The door opens. The light goes on. It is Mygale. He rushes to you. Why does he seem so stricken? He takes you in his arms, gently pulls the tape from your mouth, covers your face with kisses. He calls you “my baby” and sets to work on the cord, untying it. Your swollen limbs hurt, but your circulation is quickly restored once the restraints are gone.
Mygale holds you tight, pressing himself against you. He runs his fingers through your hair, strokes your head, the nape of your neck. He picks you up from the floor and bears you out of the room.
You are not at Le Vésinet but in some other house. What does it all mean? Mygale kicks a door open. You are in a kitchen now. Without putting you down, he takes a glass, fills it with water and has you drink it slowly, in tiny sips.
You feel as though you have swallowed kilos of dust, and nothing has ever given you such a delightful sensation as this water in your mouth.
Mygale carries you into a crudely furnished living room. He sets you down in an armchair, kneels in front of you, places his head against your belly and his arms about your waist.
You follow all this with detachment, like the spectator of some meaningless game. Mygale disappears, only to return with the bedspread, which has been left behind. He wraps you in it and carries you outside. It is night.
The Mercedes is waiting in the street. Mygale puts you in the passenger seat and gets behind the wheel.
He talks to you. He is telling a crazy, completely unbelievable tale. You hardly listen. A criminal is supposed to have kidnapped you so as to have a hold over Mygale. Poor Mygale: he has gone mad; he can no longer tell reality from his fantasy world. As for the tenderness he is showing you, you are certain that he will make you pay for it in suffering. At a stop light he turns to you, smiles, strokes your hair once more.
At Le Vésinet, he carries you into the drawing room and sits you on a sofa. He runs up to your room and fetches a robe. He helps you into it, then vanishes again. This time he reappears with a tray laden with food and drink. He hands you a few pills; you don’t know what they are, and you don’t care.