Louis Shalako
They had kept behind Noel, Tremblay and Emilie Martin.
The officers had thoroughly questioned the security guards. Ignace Gosselin and
another man had been patrolling the building from six-thirty a.m. that morning.
There were two guards on at all times, and theoretically that way they didn’t
sleep. According to the schedule, shift change was at seven a.m., but people
habitually relieved early out of mutual convenience. It gave them time to
exchange the shift reports and allowed the occasional latecomer some grace.
They had a list of all the guards who had worked the weekend. It would be wise
to locate them and get them under questioning as quickly as possible. There was
much to do, all of it at breakneck speed.
Gilles was on the phone and deploying
manpower at an alarming rate.
Finally the private security guards were let go, no
doubt to report the bad news to their employer and await their fate. From the
looks on their faces, their hopes in this regard were not sanguine and clearly
both men expected to be sacrificed on the block of accountability. As for the
cops’ attitude, everything at this point was an open question and everyone,
literally everyone was a suspect in a
crime that hadn’t even been confirmed yet. This was just as true for security
as for any other employee with access to the inner workings of the bank.
For clearly this was an inside job.
Assuming that it was a job at all, but Maintenon had
his gut instincts in these matters. It was better to be prepared; to be too
thorough, than to be careless, mistaken, and ultimately you were responsible
for your own downfall.
He never made an assumption he didn’t have to.
“All right. We have the place to ourselves.” Heavily
guarded on the outside front and back, it was a sealed crime scene for the time
being. “I would like to get some idea of the basic routine of the bank, any
bank really…especially as it pertains to opening up, and more importantly, I
think, of closing…closing out, as I believe it’s called?”
Noel nodded.
“Yes, of course.”
Gilles had Monsieur Noel, with Tremblay playing the
part of the security guard, go through all the motions. The other detectives
stood watching and trying to figure out what was significant and therefore what
notes they might take,
“So, Gosselin went through, turning on the lights and
you, sir, headed for the office.”
Emilie Martin had come in and Noel, kettle boiling,
had handed off the vault duties to her. It was one of those impulsive little
events that probably had little or no significance. All three of them were
pretty regular at opening up, Noel mostly because he thought it showed a good
example to junior employees. He was something of an inspiration and knew it. Of
all of them, he was probably most capable of doing any job in the firm—and that
extended, after going off on one or two tangents, to janitorial work, the
accounting office and policy-making. The old fellow had started off behind the
kiosk, not the usual story of privilege and nepotism, and Maintenon could
certainly respect that.
There was always that little devil-figure sitting on
the shoulder.
Did
Noel get her to open up in order to have someone else discover the body…???
But
why…??
It was a kind of applied, professional schizophrenia.
According to routine, cashiers, the counter clerks,
arrived at about a quarter to nine. Emilie assigned them a wicket, of which
there were a dozen. They signed for a drawer full of cash, all pre-counted in
predetermined quantities of fives, tens, and other denominations. Individual
drawers had an allotted count for each denomination of coin. At the end of the
day, the drawer was turned in. The contents were counted and recorded. The
result was compared with the record of transactions. Minor discrepancies, any
shortfalls or overages were duly noted.
“Everyone has a minor discrepancy once in a while, of
course.” The banker, who had been pale and defeated for the last couple of
hours, was beginning to display the first heat of a real anger. “Sometimes even
a major one.”
He was about to say, shit happens, but thought better of it.
Being questioned in relation to a crime was an
unfamiliar position to be in, and he was nothing if not bright.
“How much money would be on deposit on a typical day?”
Levain had his own list of questions and it didn’t hurt to keep asking them.
“Ten, twenty million some days—paydays, end of the
month, and more even. Sometimes a lot more, as we handle a substantial mortgage
trade. Last week a property deal—please understand that this is confidential,
but a deal went through for eight hundred seventy-five thousand. Land and
buildings in an industrial area. We can make that up for payment out of our
normal operating account. Bear in mind that a lot of transactions are purely
paper.”
A piece of paper went this way, signifying a charge,
and a piece of paper went that way, signifying a payment, as he explained. At
the end of the cycle, everything was balanced out.
“But if there was much more?” Levain again, pondering
the straightforward bank-robbery angle. “How much cash do you have on hand?”
If someone had access to the vault, and if they could
get tools in there somehow, why not go for the big score?
“No, seriously. Ten or twenty million.”
The banker shrugged.
“If a half a dozen deals go through, bearing in mind,
we often have a heads-up…cheques take seven days to even ten days to clear
sometimes. More if we have concerns or if we have to wait for funds from
somewhere else; a foreign bank for example. Basically we put in a call and it’s
advanced from the central banking facility to meet our expected needs.” When he
spoke of routine details and everyday operations, he seemed much calmer.
“Ah. And that’s not here?” Levain was pressing, as
Gilles was still thinking. “This is the big number one branch, right?”
Gilles was nothing if not intuitive, and yet it was
early. It really paid to listen sometimes. Let Levain go. He had a completely
different mind.
“Oh, no. It’s from the central depository of the Bank
of France. All of our deposits are insured, of course—” There was a cut-off
limit, he explained, but ninety percent of all deposits qualified.
Maintenon’s head jerked as he listened, the banker
rattling off points one by one.
“The safe deposit boxes?”
“Ah, well. No—”
“Oh, really.”
“Er, yes. That is the responsibility of the customer.
For one thing, the box is private, and almost by definition we don’t know
what’s in there…”
“They are strongly encouraged to purchase insurance
for the contents. Which we can do here, although they often go elsewhere. It’s
not strictly a requirement. That’s what’s so attractive about a private box in
a bank—you have that privacy, plus the assurance of a bank’s security.”
Monsieur Tremblay stepped in when Noel faltered.
He was going on, but Levain understood well enough.
“…but there are other issues, right?”
“Yes. Absolutely. It’s very difficult to put a value
on certain items. There are people, who literally keep the silverware, and
maybe the family jewels in a safety deposit box. It is the stuff of legends,
but it is also true. It might be a priceless antique, passed down over
generations, and they might travel. Security in the home is nowhere near as
good. The insurance rates are astronomical. There are too many burglaries and
they read the papers, right? People deposit their last will and testament, or
the deed to their home in one of our boxes. The value of a piece of paper might
be negligible. How do we estimate, the, ah, sentimental value if someone loses
a photo of their grandmother in a jeweled silver frame?”
Levain gave Gilles a look.
“Ah. Now I get you.”
Gilles lifted his wrist and checked his watch.
Come
on, Chiappe, where in the hell are you?
***
They returned to the vault where the work was
progressing.
On the left side of the vault, behind a row of bars
and having its own internal door and lock, lay the cash repository. Ten or
twenty million francs really didn’t take up that much space, but the money,
brought in and taken out by armoured car, was crated, boxed and bagged. The
coinage was heavy and bulky compared to the notes. It all had to be counted,
coming and going, accounted-for using proper procedures, and then the cash
drawers made up for daily business. The bulk of the money was lined up in rows
on metal shelves.
For that purpose, along the front wall of the main
vault was a long bench, with storage for dozens of drawers underneath. The
money was being counted, one block, one box, one bag at a time. While this
would take hours, possibly days, according to Monsieur Noel, the place and its
stacks of cash, some of them sitting on open shelves in a thin metal locker,
appeared to be untouched.
“Naturally, we need to make sure.” He ground to a
halt, swallowing, knowing the next part of his life was going to be very tough.
There was a kind of pain written all over the fellow.
Maintenon watched the three young people work, with
the detectives and the other civilians on the other side banging and clashing
the drawers. It sounded like they were in a hurry to get results, which was not
exactly what he had asked for—careful and thorough was what he wanted.
Lorraine turned and eyed up her employer, her dark
eyes latching onto first Maintenon and then lingering longer on Levain, still
pulling out drawers one by one. She broke off the assessment, simple curiousity
no doubt, and focused on the stacks of bills, held together in paper sleeves
that she was counting.
“Inspector.”
He turned and went back through the gate into the
outer room.
“Yes?”
Levain crooked a finger.
There was another deep box, the small card table
sagging under the weight. He had the lid open and there were small steel or
polished aluminum bottles inside.
“What have we got here?”
“Looks like gas cylinders, Inspector.”
“Hmn. No hose—”
“No, sir, but don’t worry. We’ll find it.”
“Okay. Keep going.”
The young men were looking pleased with themselves,
Tremblay and Samuel, with this box seat on the investigation and their fates
perhaps not so closely tied up in the events of the day.
It was the sort of
thing they’d be telling their grandchildren one day, and that showed in their
manner.
Noel, on the other hand, was definitely for the chop.
Gilles had seen the attitude before, during the war, when people suffered their
first major artillery bombardment. It was a kind of shock.
You had learned that you could be killed, and probably
would, someday soon. Very, very soon.
Gilles tipped his head up and idly moved around behind
those working the security boxes.
There was a strip of lighting up high, shaded and made
indirect by a white-painted sheet-metal valence. There were sprinkler heads,
and a number of small ventilator grilles as well as cold-air returns. The
ceiling of the supposedly-impregnable vault was studded with loopholes…with all
of the steel units, there was no room on the floor for vents.
“Andre.”
“Yes, boss?”
“Get a ladder in here.” But things were happening
again.
“Bingo.” Samuel had just pulled out the drawer that
Levain had abandoned in mid-stride.
“Never mind, I’ll take care of it.” Interrupting men
in the middle of a task had always been a mistake in Maintenon’s opinion.
He turned to Antoine Noel. The banker’s eyes were wide
as Levain and Samuel pulled out a short length of black hose, spiralled and
rubberized black fabric by the look of it, with some very professional looking
snap-fittings on both ends.
“Huh.”
Andre’s eyes glittered.
“Oh, my God.”
“Yes, I know sir. And I’m sorry. Uh…you must need to
change the light bulbs in here once in a while. Would you have a ladder.”
“But of course—would you like that now?” He had a
point, as there were already too many people in the room.
“Not right at this minute, but where might I find it?”
Their one remaining uniformed gendarme half-raised a
hand. LeBlanc, as Gilles thought. He was pretty sure he’d seen him around.
“I could go with him, sir.”
“No, you stay here. The bank staff makes a record, and
we make a record. Comprene vous?”
“Yes, sir.” The fellow would have to make the best of
it, but his hand would be aching by now.
All of those notes. It went with the territory. Gilles
had been there, he had done that. You put our time in. down in the mud and the
trenches. Your feet ached, your back screamed, and your mouth tasted like too
many cigarettes. There was no place to throw a shit—there were all of the usual
complaints.
“Please come this way, Inspector.” Antoine Noel, with
nothing better to do than watch his bank bleed, took his elbow gently and then
let it go.
Maintenon followed him out.
“You have air conditioning in the building.” It seemed
to work a whole hell of a lot better than the decrepit old system down at the
Quai.
It was distinctly chilly in the old place. The smell
was of floor wax and money and perhaps a kind of smugness. There was nothing
more bourgeois than a bank.
Their footsteps clattered across the floor, the noise and
light of the life outside the mute front doors making the interior, brightly
lit but deserted, downright spooky in comparison. There was nothing worse than
an empty building. The street outside was life itself compared to this.
A bank
without people in it was just as bad as anywhere else.
They went to the central block of the building and
Noel hit the button on the wall. There were three elevators.
“The bank is described as a fine example of Beaux-Arts
design, and yet it is equipped with all the modern amenities.” Clad in stone,
there was a framework of iron underneath, he told Gilles.
Once the door was closed, Monsieur Noel pushed the
button for a sub-level and they descended.
(End of excerpt. )
