Free Chourmo by Jean-Claude Izzo, Howard Curtis Page A

goodbye to Guitou, and . . . ”
    â€œDo you know his surname?”
    â€œFabre. But I don’t know where he lives.”
    â€œThe Marseilles phone book is full of Fabres.”
    â€œI know. I looked it up last night. I even called several of them. I felt such a fool. After the twelfth one I gave up. I was exhausted, on edge. And even more foolish than before I’d started.”
    â€œIn any case, I think we’ve missed the start of the school year. I’m going to see what else I can do tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll try to find out a bit more about this Mathias. And I’ll go see Naïma’s grandfather.”
    A bit of truth in the middle of all the lies. And the hope that Naïma’s mother hadn’t taken me for a ride. That the grandfather really existed. That Mourad would go with me. That the grandfather would agree to see me. That Guitou and Naïma were there, or not too far from there . . .
    â€œWhy not right away?”
    â€œGélou, have you seen what time it is?”
    â€œYes, but . . . Fabio, do you think he’s all right?”
    â€œSure, he’s in bed with a nice girl. He’s forgotten we exist. Don’t you remember what it was like? It wasn’t bad, was it?”
    â€œI was twenty! And Gino and I were going to get married.”
    â€œIt must have been good, though, all the same, eh? That’s what I’m asking.”
    There was another silence. Then I heard her sniffing at the other end. There was nothing erotic about it. It wasn’t Claudia Cardinale playing a role. It was simply my cousin crying, as a mother.
    â€œI think I really screwed up with Guitou. Don’t you think so?”
    â€œGélou, you must be tired. Finish eating and go to bed. Don’t wait up for me. Take my bed and try to get some sleep.”
    â€œOK,” she sighed.
    She sniffled some more. I heard Honorine coughing behind her. Her way of saying I shouldn’t worry, she’d take care of her. Honorine never coughed.
    â€œTake care,” I said to Gélou. “You’ll see, tomorrow, we’ll all be together.”
    I hung up. Rather abruptly, in fact, because for the last few minutes two young bozos on a moped had been circling my car. I had forty-five seconds to save my car radio. I ran out of the booth, yelling. More to let off steam than to scare them. I really did scare them, but that didn’t clear my head of all the thoughts buzzing around in it. Zooming past me, the driver of the moped shouted, “Fucking dickhead!”—even less compensation for them than the price of my rotten car radio.
    Â 
    Arno had lived in a place called the Old Mill, a spot on the road to Le Merlan curiously neglected by the developers. Before and after it, there was nothing but low-cost Provençal housing developments. High-rises for bank clerks and middle managers. I’d only been here once before, with Serge. The place was rather sinister. Especially at night. After eight-thirty, the buses stopped running, and very few cars passed.
    I parked near the old mill itself, which had been turned into a furniture warehouse. The area directly in front of it was an automobile scrap yard, owned by a distant cousin of Arno’s, a Gypsy named Saadna. Arno’s place was behind it, a parpen shack with a canvas roof. Saadna had built it with the intention of making it into a small body shop.
    I went around the mill, and walked along the Marseilles water canal for about a hundred yards, until I came to a bend, just behind the scrap yard. I ran down an embankment of garbage to Arno’s place. A few dogs barked, but I wasn’t bothered. Most dogs were asleep in the houses. Dying of fear, like their masters. And Saadna didn’t like dogs. He didn’t like anyone.
    Around, there were still a few carcasses of motorbikes. Stolen, I guessed. Arno fixed them at night, bare-chested, with slippers on his feet and a joint in his