Chourmo by Jean-Claude Izzo, Howard Curtis Read Free Book Online

would it look, showing up at these people’s door? “Hello, my name’s Fabio Montale. I’ve come to get the boy. This affair’s gone on long enough. You cool it, your mother’s worried enough as it is.” No, I couldn’t do that. What I was going to do was take the two kids to my place, and let them explain it all to Gélou.
    I spotted a familiar figure. Serge. I recognized him from the clumsy, almost childish way he walked. He was coming out of section D4, right in front of me. He seemed to have gotten thinner. Half his face was covered by a thick beard. He crossed to the parking lot, his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket, his shoulders bent. He seemed quite sad.
    I hadn’t seen him for two years. I didn’t even know he was still in Marseilles. He’d been a youth worker in North Marseilles for several years, and he’d been dismissed, partly because of me. Whenever I collared kids who’d committed some offense or other, he was the one I called to the station house, even before the parents. He’d give me information about the families, and advice. The kids were his life. That was why he’d chosen that line of work. Because he’d had enough of seeing teenagers end up in the can. He trusted them, that was the main thing. He had the kind of faith in people that some priests have. In fact, he was a bit too much like a priest, for my taste. We’d gotten on well, without ever becoming friends. Because of that side of him that was like a priest. I’ve never believed men are good. Just that they deserved to be treated equally.
    My links with Serge set tongues wagging. And my bosses didn’t like it at all. A cop and a youth worker! We were made to pay for it. Serge was the first to go. He was dealt with harshly. When my turn came, it was a little more subtle. After all, it wasn’t so easy to get rid of a cop whose appointment to the neighborhood had deliberately been made into a media event a few years earlier. Gradually, my workforce was reduced, and more and more responsibilities were taken away from me. Although I didn’t believe in it anymore, I’d carried on, because being a cop was the only thing I knew how to do. It had taken the deaths of too many people I loved before disgust finally prevailed and set me free.
    What the hell was Serge doing here? I didn’t have time to ask him. A black BMW with tinted windows suddenly appeared as if from nowhere. It was moving very slowly, and Serge didn’t take any notice of it. When it came level with him, an arm emerged through the rear window. A hand carrying a revolver. Three shots, at point blank range. The BMW took off, disappearing as suddenly as it had come.
    Serge was lying on the asphalt. Dead. There was no doubt about it.
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    The shots echoed between the blocks. Windows opened. The boys stopped playing, and the ball rolled across the roadway. Time froze, and for a moment there was silence. Then people came hurrying from all sides.
    I ran to Serge.
    â€œMove aside,” I cried to the people who were gathering around the body. As if Serge might still need space and air.
    I crouched beside him. A movement that had become familiar to me. Too familiar. As familiar as death. The years had gone by, and that seemed to be all I ever did: crouch to look at a corpse. Shit! It couldn’t be starting all over again, could it? Why were there so many corpses in my life? And why were more and more of them people I knew or loved? Manu and Ugo, my friends from childhood and hard times. Leila, so beautiful, and so young I hadn’t dared live with her. And now my pal Serge.
    Death wouldn’t let go of me. It was like a kind of glue I’d trodden in without realizing it. But why? Why, dammit?
    Serge had taken the shots full in the stomach. High caliber. .38, I suspected. Professional weapons. What kind of mess had the idiot gotten himself mixed up in? I looked up at D4. Who had he