Free Tropic Moon by Georges Simenon Page B

to the counter.
    â€œMaybe we could work something out. I’ve never owned a bar, but I think I could pull it off.”
    â€œLet’s talk about it again tomorrow morning.”
    The next day it was done. Bouilloux handed over fifty thousand francs in cash and signed some papers to make up the balance.
    That had been three weeks ago, but this was the first night that the café was actually his. Wearing his cook’s uniform, he offered champagne all around. And for the first time since the death of Eugène Renaud, the gramophone was playing. Several residents of Libreville had joined the regulars.
    Timar and Adèle sat across from each other at a little table and didn’t speak much. Every few minutes Adèle looked at her companion intently. His brow was furrowed with worry.
    He wasn’t sick, simply tired. The strange month he’d just lived through had been filled with events that had come so rapidly and been so unsettling that he still hadn’t grasped their import.
    He had barely gotten to Libreville before he found himself in an office with Adèle seated next to a notary and using her finger to point out the various deletions and corrections that should be made. The concession was in Timar’s name, but there was a binding contract between him and the widow Renaud, who brought two hundred thousand francs to the deal, a hundred thousand for the concession and the rest for improvements to the land. Every foreseeable event had been accounted for, everything was in order, and Timar, who didn’t have any objections, signed the papers he was handed one by one.
    There had been a lot of details to attend to after that, but the main thing was he’d settled into a routine that had become absolutely indispensable to him. There was, for instance, the walk down the esplanade along the red path with its border of palms. Timar always stopped at a fixed time at the market, then at the place where the native canoes landed their fish, at last at the pier across from the governor’s house.
    The heat made the walk oppressive, and yet he took it every day, as if it were a duty, and each day he asked himself where he was going to stop for a whiskey. Most often it was at the police chief’s. He sat down and said, “Don’t let me interrupt your work.”
    â€œI’m done. What’s new? A whiskey?”
    They chatted in the warm shade of the office. This lasted until the day the citizens of Libreville learned about the concession and the partnership between Timar and Adèle. Suddenly, the police chief was a changed man. He seemed put out. He puffed away at his pipe, looking at the bands of shadow and light.
    â€œYou know that the investigation is still continuing and that our opinion remains unchanged. I’ll tell you the truth: All we’re missing is the pistol. Adèle has stashed it away. But no matter—one of these days …”
    And the chief of police got up and walked across the room.
    â€œPerhaps you made an unwise move. You, a young man with the brightest of futures …”
    Timar’s response never varied. With a trace of a smile, ironic and condescending, he rose to collect his sun helmet.
    â€œLet’s drop it, all right?”
    He left, looking very dignified, and maintained the attitude for as long as he thought he was being watched. He wanted it to seem like he knew what he was doing.
    The most logical thing, now that he was on the other side, would have been to avoid the three individuals who represented the enemy camp: the governor, the chief of police, and the prosecutor. Some confused instinct, hope or a wish to show off, drove him to visit all three.
    With the prosecutor it was simple enough. His host served him three whiskies, one after the other, and gave him an earful.
    â€œYou, my friend, are about to take a bath. It’s none of my business. But still, try to get out before it’s too late. Adèle is a pretty