The Kill by Emile Zola; Arthur Goldhammer

Author:Emile Zola; Arthur Goldhammer
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307432346
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1976-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

5

The kiss he had planted on his wife’s neck preoccupied Saccard. He had long since ceased to avail himself of his marital prerogatives. The rupture had come about naturally, as neither he nor his wife cared to maintain a relationship that both found inconvenient. He never thought of entering Renée’s bedroom unless there was a juicy piece of business to justify his conjugal attentions.

The Charonne deal was proving to be a stroke of fortune, though how it would turn out in the end still worried him. Larsonneau, for all his dazzling linen, smiled in a way he found unpleasant. The expropriation agent was only a go-between, a front whose complicity he bought with a commission of ten percent of all future profits. Yet even though his associate had not invested a penny in the deal, and Saccard, after providing him with the funds to build the music hall, had taken every possible precaution—options, undated letters, antedated receipts—he nevertheless felt an obscure foreboding, a presentiment of treachery. He suspected his accomplice of intending to blackmail him with the fake inventory that remained in his possession, which was the only reason Saccard had cut him in on the deal.

The two confederates therefore exchanged a hearty handshake. Larsonneau addressed Saccard as “chief.” Deep down, he admired his associate’s high-wire exploits as a speculator and followed his performances avidly. The idea of cheating such a partner appealed to him as a rare and piquant pleasure. He was toying with a plan that remained vague because he was still unsure of how to use the weapon he had in his possession without injuring himself. In any case, he sensed that he was at the mercy of his former colleague. Carefully prepared inventories listed land and buildings already estimated at nearly two million francs but in fact worth only a quarter that much, yet all these assets would be swallowed up in a colossal bankruptcy unless the expropriation fairy touched them with her magic wand. According to preliminary plans that the two confederates had been able to consult, the new boulevard—which was intended to link the artillery range at Vincennes 1 to the Prince Eugène Barracks and thus grant the gunners access to central Paris without obliging them to move through the Faubourg Saint-Antoine—would claim part of their land. Yet there was still a danger that the route would only skirt their property and that the ingenious music-hall speculation would fail on account of its very impudence. In that case Larsonneau would be left with a delicate situation on his hands. Despite his necessarily secondary role, the risk did nothing to alleviate his distress at the thought of collecting a paltry ten percent on such a colossal theft, which would run into millions. At such times he felt a desperate itch to reach out and lop off a slice for himself.

Saccard had not even wanted Larsonneau to lend money to his wife, preferring to amuse himself by staging an elaborate melodrama that appealed to his weakness for complicated chicanery.

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