The Woman In The Fifth Read online

  'There is nothing more to it except what I said.'

  'So what kind of a business is it?'

  'That is of no concern of yours.'

  'So it's a completely illegal business then?'

  'As I said, that is no concern of yours.'

  'Is it drugs?'

  'No.'

  'Guns?'

  'No.'

  'Sex slaves?'

  'No.'

  'Weapons of mass destruction?'

  'The business in question is nothing more than a business.

  But in order to keep you free of questions about this business, it is far simpler that you are informed about nothing to do with it.'

  'And if the cops bust it?'

  'That will not happen. Because they are unaware of its existence.'

  'Then why do you – they – need a night watchman?'

  'Because they do. End of story. But listen, my friend, if you have any doubts, then you do not have to accept the offer – even though it does pay three hundred euros for a six-night week.'

  'Fifty euros a night?'

  'Your math skills are impressive. It works out at a little more than eight euros an hour – and there's nothing to the work except sitting at a desk and picking up a telephone on the rare occasion that someone shows up, and then clearing them for entry. That's it.'

  Of course that wasn't it. I knew that there was something completely sinister about his proposition. I was certain that I might be landing myself in a situation which could be potentially dangerous, or could jeopardize my future freedom. But I found myself being won over by a bleak, but consoling thought: Nothing matters. When everything that once mattered to you has been taken away, what's the point in worrying about a further descent into shit?

  Nothing matters. What a liberating idea. Nothing matters, so everything can be risked. Especially when you need the money.

  'I'd prefer sixty-five euros a night,' I said.

  A small smile from Kamal. He had me.

  'I'm certain you would,' he said.

  'I really couldn't do it for less.'

  'You'll take the job no matter what,' he said.

  'Don't be too sure about that.'

  'You'll take it – because you're desperate.'

  There was no hostility in his voice, no smug triumphalism.

  Just a cool assertion of the truth. I said nothing. Kamal refilled my glass. The whisky went down without burning me – my throat having already been anesthetized by the half-bottle of Johnnie Walker that had preceded it.

  'Do not fret so much,' Kamal said, lighting up a cigarette.

  'I didn't realize I was fretting.'

  'You are always fretting. Go home, sleep off the whisky, then be back here at six tomorrow evening. I will have news by then.'

  I returned as requested the following night. When I arrived, Kamal was on the phone, but he motioned me toward a computer. There was one email awaiting me. It was from Adnan's wife. After hanging up, Kamal translated it for me.

  Dear Mr Ricks

  The money arrived this morning. I was stunned by the sum involved – and once again send you manifold thanks for sending it to me. It has, literally, saved our lives. May God bless you and those close to you.

  I have no one close to me.

  'You have done a good thing,' Kamal said. 'And a good deed is always rewarded.'

  'Not always.'

  'You are a very cynical man. But, in this instance, it is the truth. You have gotten your sixty-five euros a night.

  The boss was reluctant at first.'

  'Who's the boss?'

  'That information is of no interest to you.'

  'OK,' I said. 'When do I start?'

  'Tonight, if that works for you.'

  'Fine.'

  'Be here at eleven thirty p.m. and I'll bring you over to the place.'

  'Is it far from here?'

  'No.'

  'How will I get paid?'

  'There will be an envelope waiting for you here every day after one p.m. You'll get off work at six a.m., so you can pick up your wages when you wake up. By the way, the boss said that you only need work six days, but if you want the seventh day—'

  'I want the seventh day.'

  'Done.'

  'Can I bring my laptop and books to work?'

  'And a radio and anything else to keep you occupied. Trust me, there won't be much to do.'

  When I left Kamal, I walked down to the Faubourg Saint-Martin and dropped thirty euros on a small transistor radio. I returned to my room. I opened a can of soup and cut up some cheese and a few slices of bread, and ate a simple dinner while listening to a concert of Berg and Beethoven on France Musique. Then I made myself a pot of coffee and drank it all. It was going to be a long night.

  When I arrived back at the Internet café, I was carrying a small day pack containing my laptop, my radio, a pad and a pen, and a copy of a Simenon novel, Trois chambres à Manhattan, which I was reading in French. Kamal was closing up the place as I entered. He reached behind the bar and dug out two large bottles of Evian.

  'You'll need these for the night ahead,' he said.

  He walked among the computers, making certain they were all shut down. Then he turned off all the lights. We stepped outside. He rolled down the large steel shutter, dug out his keys, sealed them with a formidable padlock, and motioned for me to follow him down the rue des Petites Écuries.

  'We don't have far to walk,' he said.

  At the end of the street, we turned into the rue du Faubourg Poissonnière. We crossed it and passed a showroom for some line of men's fashions. I knew this small stretch of street well, as it was right around the corner from where I lived. I'd bought a sandwich once from the local greasy souvlaki bar (and lived to eat again). I'd even treated myself to the set seven-euro dinner at the little traiteur asiatique next door. But I hadn't noticed the tiny doorway just beyond this four-table joint – a doorway that was set back off the street by around ten feet. The alley leading to the door was so narrow that a man with a forty-inch waistline would have had trouble negotiating it. There was a steel door at the end of it. There was a small camera above the door and a spotlight trained on the area below the doorway. There was a keypad with a speakerphone beside it. Kamal punched in six numbers. As he did so, he told me, 'The code is 163226. Memorize it, but don't write it down.'

  'Why don't you want me to write it down?'

  'Because I don't want you to write it down. 1-6-3-2-2-6. You got that?'

  I repeated it out loud, then said it a second time, just to make certain that it had adhered to my brain.

  'Good,' he said as the door clicked open. We entered a hallway lit by a single naked lightbulb. The walls were unpainted concrete. Ditto the floor. There was a stairway in front of us. Around twelve feet away there was another steel door. Behind it I could hear the low hum of . . . was it something mechanical? . . . machinery perhaps? . . . and the occasional raised voice? But the sound was muffled. As I strained to hear it, Kamal put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Up the stairs.'

  The staircase led to another steel door. This was opened by two keys. Kamal had to put his weight on the door to finish the job and gain us access to a small room. Like the hallway, it had unpainted concrete walls. It was ten by ten, furnished with a beat-up metal desk, a straight-back chair, and nothing else. A closed-circuit television monitor sat on one corner of the desk. It was broadcasting a grainy image of the doorway outside. By the monitor was a speaker and a keypad. There were two doorways off this room. One was opened, showing the interior of an old-fashioned stand-up French toilet. You had to face front and squat as you took a dump. The toilet was also unpainted and seemed to lack a light. The other door was wooden and locked with a sliding bolt. There were no windows in the room – and the one radiator wasn't throwing off much in the way of heat.

  'You expect me to work here?' I asked.

  'That is up to you.'

  'This place is a shit hole – a cold shit hole with no light.'<
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  'The radiator can be turned up higher.'

  'I'll need some sort of other heat.'

  'OK, you can buy an electrical heater for the room—'

  'And a desk lamp.'

  'Fine. Will you start tonight?'

  I looked around, thinking, He's looking for a deadbeat to do a deadbeat's job – and he's sized you up as the perfect candidate.

  'All right, I'll start tonight – but I want some cash to buy paint and stuff tomorrow.'

  'If you want to paint the place, you will have to do it during your work hours.'

  'Fine by me. But doesn't anyone use the room by day? Don't you have a sentry for the morning hours?'

  'That is no concern of yours,' he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a substantial wad of cash. He peeled off three fifty-euro notes and handed them to me.

  'This should be sufficient for the paint, the brushes, the heater, the lamp. But provide receipts, please. The boss is finicky about expenses.'

  Kamal lit up a cigarette, then said, 'So here is how the job works. You arrive here every night at midnight. You let yourself in. Once inside this room, you bolt the door behind you and padlock it shut. Then you sit down and do whatever you want to do for the next six hours, always keeping an eye on the monitor. If you see anyone in the alley who is loitering, you press the number 2-2 on the keypad. This will send a signal to someone that there is an unwanted stranger outside. They will take care of the problem. If a visitor approaches the doorway, he will ring a button which will sound up here on the desk speaker. You press 1-1 on the keypad and say one word, "Oui? " If he is legitimate, he will answer, "I am here to see Monsieur Monde." Once you have received this answer, you press the Enter button on the keypad which will activate the door. You then press 2-3 on the keypad which will inform the people downstairs that a legitimate visitor is on his way to them.'

  'And what will "the people downstairs" do?'

  'They will "greet" this legitimate visitor. Now if the person who rings the door doesn't say, "I am here to see Monsieur Monde," you press 2-4 on the keypad. This will send a signal that there is an unwanted presence in the alley. Once again, the people downstairs will take care of the problem.'

  'It sounds like the people downstairs worry about unwanted guests.'

  'I will say this once more. What goes on downstairs does not concern you – and it will never concern you. Believe me, my friend, it is better that way.'

  'And say the cops just happen to show up in the alley . . .'

  'No problem,' he said, walking over to the door next to the toilet and unbolting it. 'This is never locked. If you see the cops on the screen, you exit here. There is a bolt – very strong – on the other side. It will buy you a few minutes' time, as the cops will have to break the door down. By the time they do that, you will be out of the building. The passage behind here leads down to a basement. There is another door there which leads to a passage into the adjoining building. When you come out of that building, you will be on the rue Martel. The cops will have no idea.'

  'This is insane,' I heard myself say out loud.

  'Then don't take the job.'

  'Promise me that whatever is going on downstairs isn't so morally reprehensible . . .' I said.

  'No one is being involuntarily harmed,' he said.

  I paused, knowing I had to make a decision immediately.

  'I will never have to directly meet anyone?' I asked.

  'You come at midnight, you go at six. You sit in this room. You don't leave. You see the people who come here on the monitor. They don't see you. It is all very elegant.'

  'OK,' I said, 'we have a deal.'

  'Good,' Kamal said.

  After taking me again through all the various numbers I had to press, and handing me the assorted keys, he said, 'There is just one thing. You must never come here before midnight, you must leave promptly at six. Unless you see the police on the monitor, you must never leave the room until six.'

  'Otherwise I'll turn into a pumpkin?'

  'Something like that, yes. D'accord? '

  'D'ac.'

  'So you are clear about everything?'

  'Yes,' I lied. 'Everything is perfectly clear.'

  Eight

  NOTHING HAPPENED THAT first night. I set up my laptop. I forced myself to work – my eyes straining under the single naked lightbulb. I pushed myself into writing five hundred words. I turned up the radiator and discovered that it gave off no more heat. I drank the two litres of Evian. I peed several times in the toilet and was grateful that I didn't need a bowel movement, as I couldn't have handled standing up to do it. I read some of the Simenon novel – a dark, sparely written tale about a French actor getting over the breakup of his marriage by wandering through the night world of 1950s New York. Around four in the morning, I started to fade – and fell asleep sitting up at the desk. I jolted awake, terrified that I had missed something on the monitor. But the screen showed nothing bar the glare of a spotlight on a doorway – an image so grainy it almost seemed as if it was from another era, as if I was looking at the past tense just downstairs.

  I read some more. I fought fatigue. I fought boredom. I drew up a list of what I'd buy this afternoon to fix the place up. I kept glancing at my watch, willing 6 a.m. to arrive. When it finally did, I unlocked the door. I turned off the light in the room. I closed the door behind me and locked it. I hit the light for the stairs. At the bottom of them, I stood for a moment, trying to hear any noises from the big steel door at the end of the ground-floor corridor. Nothing. I unlocked the front door. Outside it was still night – a touch of damp in the air, augmenting the chill that had crawled under my skin during those six hours in a badly heated concrete box. I locked the door, my head constantly turning sideways to scan the alleyway and see if anyone was waiting to hit me over the head with a club. But the alley was clear. I finished locking the door. I walked quickly into the street. No cops, no heavies in parkas and balaclava helmets, waiting to have a few words with me. The rue du Faubourg Poissonnière was empty. I turned left and kept moving until I came to a little boulangerie that was on the rue Montholon. This took me a few minutes past my own street, but I didn't care. I was hungry. I bought two pains au chocolat and a baguette at the boulangerie. I ate one of the croissants on the way back to my chambre. Once inside I took a very hot shower, trying to get some warmth back into my bones. Then I changed into a T-shirt and pajama bottom, and made myself a bowl of hot chocolate. It tasted wonderful. So too did the second pain au chocolat. I pulled the blinds closed. I set the alarm for 2 p.m. I was asleep within moments of crawling into bed.

  I slept straight through. It was strange waking up in the early afternoon – and knowing that I wouldn't see bed again until after six the next morning. Still, I had things to do – so I was up and out the door in ten minutes. Much to my relief – because the paranoid part of me wondered if, indeed, I would get paid at all – an envelope was waiting for me at the Internet café. As agreed there were sixty-five euros inside it.

  'Where's Kamal?' I asked the guy behind the counter – a quiet, sullen-looking man in his late twenties, with a big beard and the telltale bruise on his forehead of a devout Muslim who prostrated himself several times a day in the direction of Mecca.