Chourmo by Jean-Claude Izzo, Howard Curtis

I shook my head.
    â€œForget it,” Félix answered. “Just the coffee. His wife’s just cheated on him.”
    Fifteen minutes later, Jo called back. We’d already gotten through a Côteaux d’Aix, a red wine from the Domaine des Béates. 1988.
    â€œHey, Félix! You been banging this guy’s wife, you better watch out.”
    â€œWhy?” Félix asked.
    â€œHis name’s Antoine Balducci.”
    Félix gave me a questioning look. I didn’t know anyone of that name. Let alone his wife.
    â€œDon’t know him,” Félix said.
    â€œHe’s a regular at the Rivesalte in Toulon. He’s got underworld connections in the Var. That’s what Jeannot says. I got him to go with me when I took the coffee out. Just for a laugh, you know. Jeannot was a waiter over that way. That’s where he met Balducci. Hell, it was a good thing it was dark! If he’d recognized him, things might have hotted up . . . And anyhow, there were two of them.”
    â€œTwo,” Félix repeated, giving me a questioning look. “You didn’t know?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI couldn’t even tell you what the other guy looks like,” Jo went on. “He didn’t move. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t even breathe. In my opinion, he’s top brass, compared with Balducci . . . Hey, you in trouble, Félix?”
    â€œNo, no, it’s not me . . . It’s one of my customers . . . A really good customer.”
    â€œWell, tell him to make himself scarce. If you ask me, these guys are armed to the teeth.”
    â€œI’ll pass it on. Look, Jo, are you sure this hasn’t landed you in any trouble?”
    â€œNo, Balducci laughed. Maybe not very genuine, but he did laugh. These guys can take it, you know.”
    â€œAre they still there?”
    â€œNo, they’ve gone now. ‘So someone bought this for me?’ he asked, and pointed to the coffee. ‘Yes, monsieur,’ I said. He put a hundred francs in the cup. The coffee spilled all over my fingers. ‘There’s your tip.’ You see the kind of guy.”
    â€œYeah, I see. Thanks, Jo. Drop by for an aperitif one of these days. Ciao.”
    Celeste brought the
fegatelli
, grilled to a turn, together with a few potatoes sprinkled with parsley. Félix sat down and opened another bottle. With its fragrances of thyme, rosemary and eucalyptus, the wine was a small masterpiece. You couldn’t get tired of it.
    As we ate, we talked about the tuna fishing competition traditionally organized by the nautical club of the Vieux-Port at the end of September. It was the season for it. In Marseilles, Port-de-Bouc, Port Saint-Louis. Three years ago, just off Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, I’d caught a 660-pound tuna, from two hundred and eighty feet down. The battle had gone on for three and a quarter hours. I’d had my photo in the Arles edition of
Le Provençal
and I’d been made an honorary member of the Les Goudes boat club, La Rascasse.
    I was getting ready for the competition, as I did every year. They’d recently changed the rules to allow fishing
au broumé
. A traditional Marseilles method. You stop your boat, and you attract the fish by throwing crushed sardines and bread into the sea. It makes a kind of oily patch, which is carried along on the current. When the fish, swimming against the current, smells it, he heads for the boat. After that, the real sport starts!
    â€œSo, you don’t know much more than you did before, do you?” Félix asked, a touch worried, when Céleste went to get the cheese.
    â€œNo,” I replied, laconically.
    I’d forgotten all about the guys in the Safrane. It was true, I didn’t know much more than I’d known before. What could I possibly be involved in, that two mobsters from the Var should be on my tail? I didn’t know anyone in Toulon. I hadn’t been near the place in more than thirty