Aftershock by Andrew Vachss Page B

years old.”
    “A fully restored one?” the guy who must be Martin asked me.
    “I don’t know. I don’t know much about them. The guy I was with told us it was a French body with an American engine. Very special, very expensive.”
    “Where did you see it?”
    “Paris.”
    “Oh. Well, I guess if you were going to find one in original condition, that would be the place to look.”
    “It was a long time ago.”
    “I’ll just bet,” he said. “Did you know that Albert Camus died in a Facel Vega?”
    I shook my head. What I did know was that some of my comrades developed that
esprit de corps
so deeply that they loved the whole
idea
of a Facel Vega. To them, it represented the best of an era, that postwar period when gangsters ruled Paris. To a legionnaire, they represented true hard men. They walked their own road, and answered to no authority. The more flamboyantly, the better.
    Their idol was Mesrine, probably because he shared some of their early experiences: when he was conscripted, he asked to be sent to Algeria, and won medals for valor in battle. But Mesrine’s real specialty was robbing banks, taunting the police, and escaping from prisons. When he was finally killed in a police ambush, he was mourned by many.
    Buisson was from an earlier time than Mesrine, but had the same bloodlines. He, too, served in North Africa, in a penal battalion, and also won the honors for bravery in battle. As a gangster, he was known for using Sten guns in holdups, for which they forgave him, because he would drive no car other than a Citroën.
    Another critical connection was his breaking his brother out of jail, just as Mesrine had helped comrades escape.
    Perhaps the final irony of Buisson’s life was to be guillotined at the same “escape-proof” prison from which Mesrine fled, armed with handguns that must have been smuggled in. How the pistols got inside that prison varied with press accounts, but to legionnaires, the aid must have been supplied by members of the OAS, those
vrais guerriers
who had been betrayed by de Gaulle’s search for a “political solution” in Algeria. As they saw it, the ground there held too much of their comrades’ blood for them to give it up to anyone, ever.
    And, to a man, everyone I served with worshiped
la cinéma
. Itwas accepted that only the actor Alain Delon could “represent” Mesrine, and that only a special car could possibly capture the flamboyance required. Their exemplar was
Le Samouraï
. I never saw that movie, but I knew that
“Delon préfère la Citroën”
was, to them, proof within proof, as if the movie were looping back around Buisson.
    Maybe it seems bizarre to you that men trained to kill would glorify movie stars or cry over an Édith Piaf record. To me, it always made perfect sense. Men who have to leave their feelings behind when they go to war would need a way to reclaim them when they returned.
    “Which one would you like?” his partner asked, clearly trying to change the subject.
    “Would that one be okay?” I asked, pointing to the Lexus. Even though it was really my only option, I was okay with it. Its SUV configuration would look right at home in places I had to go—it could play off as luxury or menace, depending on what I needed.
    “Absolutely,” he said, handing over a key fob. He gave me a business card with a number written on the back. “If you get stopped, tell the police to give us a call. Either one—it’s registered in both our names. The number on the back is my cell. Martin has the same number, but I’m the one who seems to always answer the calls.”
    “Thank you,” I said, extending my hand.
    “You are more than welcome,” he answered. His grip was a practiced one, under control.
    “You’re a sweetheart, Johnny,” Dolly said, kissing him on the cheek.
    “After you explained, how could I say no?”
    “I didn’t think you would,” she said.
    “And I’m—what?—not involved?” the other one said.
    “Oh, just stop,