House of Spies (Gabriel Allon #17)(66)
It was nearly dusk by the time he reached the outskirts of Marseilles. The violent drug gangs thrived in the city’s northern banlieues, especially in the housing projects of Bassens and Paternelle, but Keller approached through the more tranquil suburbs to the east. The Tunnel Prado-Carénage delivered him to the Old Port, and from there he made his way to the rue Grignan. Slender and straight as a ruler, it was lined with the likes of Boss, Vuitton, and Armani. There was even a JLM jewelry boutique. Keller swore he could detect the sour odor of hashish as he passed.
As he continued across the city center, into the quartier of Marseilles known as Le Camas, the streets turned dirty and mean, and the shops and cafés catered to a decidedly immigrant and working-class clientele. One such enterprise, located on the ground floor of a graffiti-splattered building overlooking the Place Jean Jaurès, peddled discount electronic goods and mobile phones to a largely Moroccan and Algerian customer base. Its proprietor, however, was a Frenchman named René Devereaux. Devereaux owned a number of other small businesses in Marseilles—all of which were cash-oriented, some in the category loosely defined as adult entertainment—but the electronics shop served as something like his operational headquarters. His office was on the second floor of the building. The room contained no telephone or electronic devices of any kind, a curious set of circumstances for a man who purportedly sold such modern conveniences for a living. René Devereaux didn’t care much for the telephone, and it was said that he had never once personally sent an e-mail or text message. He communicated with his business associates and subordinates only in person, oftentimes in the gritty square or at a streetside table at Au Petit Nice, a reasonably pleasant café located a few paces from his shop.
Keller knew all this because René Devereaux was a prominent figure in the world he had once inhabited. Everyone in the French criminal underground knew that Devereaux’s real business was drug trafficking. Not just street-level trafficking, but trafficking on a continent-wide scale. The French police were likely aware of it, too, but Devereaux, unlike many of his competitors, had never spent a single day behind bars. He was a made man, an untouchable. Until tonight, thought Keller. For it was René Devereaux’s name that Olivia Watson had spoken in the safe house outside Ramatuelle. Devereaux was the one who made the trains run on time, the one who moved the hashish from the docks of southern Europe to the streets of Paris and Amsterdam and Brussels. The one, thought Keller, who knew all of Jean-Luc Martel’s secrets. They would have only one chance to get him cleanly. Fortunately, they had at their disposal some of the best field operatives in the business.
Keller left the motorbike at the edge of the Place Jean Jaurès and walked to Devereaux’s shop. Peering at the merchandise in the cluttered display window he saw two men, both French in appearance, observing him from their outpost behind the counter. On the second floor, light burned behind the shuttered French door that gave onto the crumbling balcony.
Keller turned away and continued along the street for about fifty meters before stopping next to a parked van. Giancomo, Don Orsati’s errand boy, sat behind the wheel. Two other Orsati operatives were crouched in the rear cargo compartment, smoking nervously. Giancomo, however, appeared outwardly calm. Keller suspected it was for his benefit.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“About twenty minutes ago. He stepped onto the balcony to have a cigarette.”
“Are you sure he’s still in there?”
“We have a man watching the back of the building.”
“Where are the others?”
The young Corsican nodded toward the Place Jean Jaurès. The square was crowded with residents of the quartier, many in the traditional clothing of Africa or the Arab world. Even Keller couldn’t spot the don’s men.
He looked at Giancomo. “No mistakes, do you hear me? Otherwise, you’re liable to start a war. And you know how the don feels about wars.”
“Wars are good for the don’s business.”
“Not when he’s a combatant.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not a little boy anymore. Besides, I have this.” Giancomo tugged at the talisman around his neck. It was identical to Keller’s. “She sends her best, by the way.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“Something about a woman.”
“What about her?”
Giancomo shrugged. “You know how the signadora is. She talks in riddles.”
Keller smoked a cigarette while walking to Au Petit Nice. Inside it was bedlam—Marseilles was playing Lyon—but there were a few tables to be had outside in the street. At one sat a man of medium build with dense silvery hair and thick black spectacles. At an adjacent table two dark-eyed men in their twenties were watching the pedestrians moving along the pavements with unusual intensity. Keller walked over to the silver-haired man and, uninvited, sat down. There was a bottle of pastis and a single glass. Keller signaled the waiter and requested a second.
“You know,” he said in French, “you really should drink some.”
“It tastes like licorice-flavored gasoline,” replied Gabriel. He watched two robed men walking arm-in-arm in the street. “I can’t believe we’re back here again.”
“Au Petit Nice?”
“Marseilles,” said Gabriel.