Paris Noir: Capital Crime Fiction
he holds out a twenty-euro note.
    ‘Go, lady, please.’
    I move into first, but as I pass the black guys, they throw themselves on my bonnet, stopping me. Shit, it’s not the day for it.
    I open the glove box and pull out the Beretta, putting on the safety catch. Then, pretty tense, I push the door open, waving my gun.
    ‘Touch the taxi and you get shot.’
    ‘Hey grandma, stay cool, we just want to pick up our friend in the back.’
    ‘He’s not your friend. Get back all three of you.’

SUGAR
    I know those guys: three of the Barbès drugs boss’s henchmen. Look like rappers but they’ve got chickpeas for brains. I hear them whining to the taxi woman: they’re scared of her gun. I yank open the door and shout to the old girl:
    ‘Lady, it’s best to just go.’
    She turns towards me and at the same time I get a knife in the shoulder. Shit, it burns. I quickly get back in, shouting, while the taxi woman shoots a few bullets into the air to frighten off the scum.
    She gets behind the wheel.
    ‘It’s bleeding.’
    ‘Shut it, trouble.’
    She throws the taxi into reverse, backs down La Goutte d’Or and we reach boulevard Barbès in the rain. And I think I’m dying.
    ‘A hospital…’
    ‘I know. Let me think.’
    It’s not my day. My district’s a no-go area and my only chance is to get back to Tarterets to lie low and wait for them to forget me.
    She’s turned on the radio and I recognise something by Dr Dre.
    I see her eyes in the mirror.
    ‘Shit, it hurts.’
    ‘Don’t pull on the blade, it’s stopping the blood flow. I know Hôtel-Dieu well, we’ll go straight there. When we get there, you say nothing about my gun. You got knifed by some crazies in the street and I picked you up afterwards. Understood?’
    ‘You haven’t got a licence.’
    ‘I have but I don’t want any hassle. Who are those guys? And who are you?’
    ‘None of your business.’
    She slams on the brakes. We’re at the corner of boulevard Saint Martin. Everything’s blurry under the rain which mists up the glass.
    She walks round the cab and opens my door. She’s already soaked.
    ‘Get out, you moron.’
    ‘But why?’
    ‘I like to know who I’m dealing with.’
    ‘OK, I’ll tell you, but get a move on, I don’t want to die in a taxi.’
    At last she starts up again. This woman’s stressing me out. With all the hassle I’ve got, I didn’t need this too.
    ‘Right, explain.’
    So I describe my glamorous life in the square. Of course I don’t give names. I say I went into a diabetic coma on the terrace in rue Myrha. Rashid my neighbour’s got diabetes.
    ‘You don’t look like a diabetic. You were smoking dope and off your head, I reckon.’
    ‘I was not. I can control my drugs.’
    ‘Oh yeah, you’re in control. And now you’ve got all the dealers in Barbès on your arse, wanting to avenge their friend.’
    I don’t answer but she’s right. We reach A &E, there are lights flashing, ambulances drive to and fro in front of the taxi. The knife digs into my shoulder when I move. Taxi woman turns to me and pushes back the blonde hair hanging over her eyes.
    ‘What’s his name, this dealer you didn’t warn?’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Just curious.’
    ‘Roger.’
    ‘Roger who?’
    ‘Solal. You know him?’
    She turns back to her steering wheel, leans back on her seat and says in a thin voice:
    ‘He’s my son. I knew it.’
    Shit, what luck. I don’t know what to say. The shame of it.
    Roger’s mother.
    ‘Get out, now.’
    ‘Uh, I’m…’
    ‘Get out!’
    I quickly get out of the car, bent over like an old man, and walk slowly towards A &E, so as not to dislodge the knife.

LYDIE
    Looking to pick up, I’m back on boulevard Sebastopol. And I realise: I never took the kid’s money. Roger’s face appears on my windscreen. A man. now. But it’s the child I still see. The child who cried at the physio’s, wheezing with broncheolitis. The child who held his breath, pretending to drown, leaving me gasping on

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