White Leopard, page 1
Praise for White Leopard
“Every once in a great while you meet an author who not only talks the talk and walks the walk, but actually writes it right—Laurent Guillaume’s White Leopard is the perfect combination of street smarts and literary talent.”
—Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries,
the basis of the hit Netflix drama Longmire
“Fans of classic hard-boiled PI fiction will relish Guillame’s first book to be translated into English... He delivers a tale of high-level corruption that will resonate with James Ellroy readers.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“This is crime fiction as hard-boiled as it gets. Guillaume, winner of literary prizes in France, is likely to win fans here, too.”
—Booklist
“West Africa is brought vividly to life in this enthralling, fast-paced noir.”
—Foreword Reviews
“A powerful novel with keys to understanding what is at play in Mali.”
—Midi Libre
“Guillaume displays remarkable knowledge about Mali and its underworld.”
—Liberation
“Guillaume’s energetic writing offers readers a hard-boiled mystery set in a Sahel eaten away by corruption.”
—Alibi Magazine
An intensely true-to-life mystery on steroids. It’s raw, authentic and topical.”
—Emotions Literary Blog
White Leopard
Laurent Guillaume
Translated from French by Sophie Weiner
All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
First published in France as
Black Cocaïne
by Editions Denoël
©2013 Editions Denoël
English translation ©2015 Sophie Weiner
First published in English in 2015
by Le French Book, Inc., New York
www.lefrenchbook.com
Translator: Sophie Weiner
Translation editor: Amy Richards
Proofreader: Chris Gage
Cover designer: Jeroen ten Berge
ISBNs:
Trade paperback: 9781939474506
Hardback: 9781939474520
E-book: 9781939474513
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. For the purposes of the story, the author took authorial license with references to historical events, places, facts, and people.
To Olivier Marchal, my brother
“An orphan is not a person who has lost his parents,
but someone who has lost hope.”
—Bambara proverb
“It’s better to be judged by twelve than
carried by six.”
—Popular police saying
Prologue
Lyon, France, the past
There she is, a metal monster with a tricked-out engine, lying motionless in a chop shop outside the city. She’d been souped up with heavy side panels and a supercharged engine. Perfect for trafficking. It’s stinking hot out, but they really should have closed the door of the garage.
Big mistake.
Sweating’s better than bleeding.
I check my watch. I don’t have much time before the others show up, lights flashing, sirens blaring, and all that crap. I lift the latch and push the gate open. It hardly squeaks. I stay off the gravel driveway and walk through the overgrown yard to avoid being spotted. The makeshift shop looks like it was once a house. Bodies of abandoned cars are rotting away all around it. Waste oil and battery acid are seeping from their guts, making holes in the weeds. The men are there. They’re busy taking apart the front of the car. The crushed radiator and bumper have already been ripped off.
It’s the watchdog that spots me—a rottweiler mutt with a big muscular chest. His black and wild coat’s full of scars, some of them still fresh, no doubt from being forced to fight in basements of the neighboring projects.
Chained to the rusty body of a Renault 11, he leaps up on all fours, baring a steel-jaw trap and yellow fangs.
He gives a muffled growl. From deep inside.
Slowly, I walk closer, bringing my finger to my lips.
“Shush!” I whisper. How pathetic. The dog turns his huge snout toward his masters. When they don’t react, the animal starts barking. The men raise their heads. I freeze. They look at each other and come out of the garage, glancing around. No surprise, considering what they’re working on. Eddie, the giant, wipes his huge grease-covered mitts on a rag. Steve, the weakling, approaches the animal, who’s barking louder now and foaming at the mouth. He leaps toward me with crazed eyes. The dog’s chain looks ready to break. The skeleton of the car rises each time the animal jumps.
“Who’s the black asshole?” Steve asks.
“Can’t you see he’s a pig? Fuck!” Eddie shouts.
“I know he’s a cop. Why’s he alone?”
The animal has gone quiet. With a half-smile, Steve starts unfastening the chain that holds him back.
“Go on, Panzer. It’s lunch time.”
I’m not scared. I know what I have to do. I open my jacket and slip my hand on my weapon. The freed watchdog rushes toward me. The two brothers howl with laughter, cheering the attack. I draw my gun, thinking I’ll never be able to shoot a target moving that fast. But somehow the first bullet hits the rottweiler in the chest, and the second goes right through the head. Never, not even when I worked the anti-gang unit, had I ever pulled off a shot like that. I’d think it’s the hand of God, but I don’t believe in God anymore. The beast falls at my feet, his eyes glassy and his tongue hanging out.
“Fuck! Panzer!” Steve shrieks.
“See, I told you! He’s a pig!” Eddie yells.
Steve starts backing up, his hands open, like he’s leading a prayer.
“Officer, we have nothing to do with this. We just fix up old cars…”
Stunned, I head toward them, my gun dangling from my hand. Eddie, the hothead, decides to take control of the situation. He grabs an enormous monkey wrench from a toolbox and dashes at me, brandishing it above his head. I shoot him in the knee. It must hurt worse than I imagine. He falls to the ground, howling like he’s possessed. Steve, meanwhile, is blubbering in the back of the garage. He’d never been the braver of the two brothers. I crouch in front of the bumper. It’s dented, like the grille. By the license plate, I see a patch of cream-colored linen. I close my eyes and straighten up. I’m feeling a hundred years old and the downers have no effect.
There’s blood on the hood.
I head toward Eddie, who’s still yowling and rocking himself in a puddle of oil. I pick up the monkey wrench and swing it. I crack his skull. Then I whack him over and over until I lose count. I only stop because of the excruciating pain in my arm. It feels like it’s about to come out of the socket. Panting and nauseated, I look at my reflection in the driver’s-side mirror of the car they’d been working on. I’m covered in Eddie’s blood and bits of his brain. Steve’s throwing up in the back of the garage. He lifts his tearful eyes to me as I walk toward him. Remnants of his last meal are dripping from the corner of his mouth. I drop the monkey wrench.
“It wasn’t me. It was Eddie,” he says.
But I know which of the two was the driver. I make a fist and crack my knuckles.
1
Bamako, Mali, 2009
It was a beautiful morning. It must have been about ten o’clock, but it felt like daybreak. She was waiting for me at the top of the outside stairs. I didn’t notice her at first. I was too focused on getting up the crumbling concrete steps. I hadn’t had a bout of malaria in several weeks, but I still needed to hold onto the rusty handrail like a shriveled old man. Reckless—perhaps suicidal—geckos were dashing between my feet. When I looked up, she was there, standing on the walkway in the intense June sunshine. She was wearing a white dress as light as the first breezes of the Harmattan, the dry wind that sweeps over West Africa in the fall and winter. Her eyes were full of both seriousness and hope. I wiped the thin layer of sweat from my brow and stepped past her, pretending not to take notice. Beautiful women do nothing but cause me trouble, and judging by her looks, this girl would be World War III. I pulled a key from my pocket and approached the door, with its gold plaque trumpeting “Camara Investigations.” She moved aside to let me pass.
“Are you Souleymane Camara?” she asked from behind me as I slid the key in the lock.
I opened the door.
“That depends.” I turned around to look her in the face.
She was tall—almost my height—and elegant. She was most likely a native of a Maghreb country. I’d have bet Morocco. I could see the outline of her muscled thighs under her gauzy dress. Her leg was just inches from my hand, and it was all I could do to keep myself from reaching out and touching it. Her jet-black hair was pulled back in a tight bun, with a few wisps around her ears. The style wasn’t at all unflattering. It highlighted her perfect oval-shaped face and intense dark eyes, which probed me mercilessly. It had been a late night for me, and based on the look of disapproval in her eyes, the excessive activities I had recently been engaging in were blatantly clear. Strangely, it bothered me that she would judge me so harshly.
“That depends on what?” she said.
“That depends on why you’re here and whether I owe you money or have caused harm to you or some
“And what if that’s the case?”
“Take a number and get in line.”
“Are there that many people?”
“More than I can count.”
“I’ve come to ask for your help, although I’m starting to question whether it’s a good idea.”
Her tone was cold and revealed a certain level of education. Underneath, there was a melodious Mediterranean singsong in her voice.
I opened the door all the way and motioned her into the office. “Go ahead.”
She paused before entering. I pointed to one of the two chairs in front of my desk, the one without the frayed padding and loose frame. I had left my window open, and the hot midmorning heat was already seeping into the room. I glanced at the traffic outside. The street was congested, and the cop at the intersection was trying desperately to maintain order. On the sidewalk, merchants were hassling the passersby, and the beggars were pleading for handouts from drivers stopped at the light.
I closed the window, and the chaos of Bamako subsided. Using my remote, I turned on the AC. The cool air rushed into the room, drying my sweaty back. With a sigh of satisfaction, I sat down in my made-in-China executive chair. I propped my feet on the desk—also from China—and, with a stone face, stared at my female visitor. It was a technique the older cops had taught me when I was still on the force. Always put the other person in an uncomfortable position. Confronted with silence, they’d want to alleviate the tension, fill the time, and perhaps let slip a few helpful insights—things they would have kept to themselves under different circumstances.
But now my efforts were yielding nothing in return. She maintained a polite silence. Finally, I spoke. I cleared my throat and asked, “Well then, what can I do for you, Mrs.…?”
“Ms. Tebessi. Farah Tebessi.”
She had insisted on the “Ms.,” as if it were of great importance to her. That amused me.
“I’m a lawyer, a member of the Paris bar. Perhaps my name rings a bell for you?”
Indeed, the name struck a vague chord in my brain, which was still foggy from too much alcohol. Something I had read in a paper, something that was mentioned on ORTM radio. I rummaged through the mayhem on my desk and extracted an issue of Le Républicain. “Suspected drug trafficker arrested before flight to Paris,” a headline blared. And just below that, a readout: “Police say female passenger had 13 kilos of cocaine hidden in luggage.”
The article described the impressive effectiveness of the Bamako drug squad bloodhounds. They had neutralized the “dangerous drug-trafficker” just before she boarded her plane. Accompanying the article was a photo: a woman, who appeared to be in her twenties. Distraught and fatigued, she was handcuffed and posed in front of a table with the seized cocaine.
“That’s my sister,” Farah said. “My little sister, Bahia.”
I threw the paper in the wastebasket. The police had been finding coke all over Bamako—by the kilo and by the line.
“I don’t see how I can be of help to you. Your sister’s fate is sealed.”
Farah Tebessi leaned forward with a pained smile on her face, the kind a teacher uses on a kid who’s acting too cocky.
“Look, Mr. Camara…”
“Solo… Call me Solo.”
“Solo, Bahia is…” Farah hesitated, then continued. “Bahia is your average girl next door. She’s in her second year of law school and works part time at an industrial bakery in Val-d’Oise. She’s got a young daughter, but the father’s gone. She’s just getting by, and I assume that makes her the perfect prey for traffickers. There’s no way I’m abandoning her. My niece is waiting for her mother. I want to bring her back to France.”
“What you want doesn’t matter here.”
Farah leaned back and sighed. “I’m sure you realize that I didn’t set out on this journey without educating myself beforehand. I’m not naïve. I know the local customs. There’s always something that can be done.”
“I’m curious to hear what that may be.”
“I would like you to contact the examining magistrate responsible for this case and offer him something in exchange for my sister’s freedom.”
I looked at her skeptically while playing nervously with the tagelmust draped around my neck.
“Are you asking me to buy off a judge?”
She let out a scornful little laugh.
“I thought I made myself clear. Don’t act all high and mighty. According to what I’ve heard, buying off people is the national pastime in Mali.”
“Who gave you my name?”
She smoothed her dress and locked eyes with me.
“Thanks to my work as a lawyer, I’m in regular contact with the police. I’ve even become friends with a few. Commander Lefèvre suggested that I speak with you.”
Lefèvre—the head of my old drug squad. Pensively, I rubbed the scars on my left hand.
“He told me not to trust my first impressions, that you were a commendable cop back in the day,” Farah Tebessi continued. “He said if someone could help me in this country, it would be you. That’s why I haven’t given up yet.”
“Did he tell you how I’m a disaster waiting to happen and that partnering with me can lead to a whole world of trouble?”
She gave me an irritated look. That was clearly a talent of hers.
“Yes, he told me. But I’m not scared—I mean, by what you did.”
My throat was feeling as dry as the Sahel. I looked over at the minibar, where my bottle of Scotch was waiting for me. But it was too early. I had to hold out a little longer—until noon, at least.
“I have a saying: in Mali everything’s possible and nothing’s certain,” I replied.
“Okay then, do everything that’s possible. I’ve already said good-bye to certainties.”
“How much?” I asked.
“Fifteen thousand euros for the judge, and three thousand for you,” she said. That’s about ten million in CFA francs for the judge and two million for you, give or take.”
“Divide that in half, and it’ll be enough. No need to whet any appetites.”
She kept staring at me. “For you too?”
“Yes. For me too.”
Farah told me she was staying at the Laïco Hotel, just across from the French embassy. We agreed to meet at the same time the following day. She planned to exchange her euros for the African currency at a Malian bank and hand it over to me at our appointment. A branch of the Mali Development Bank was conveniently located near her hotel. I suggested that she have a guard from the bank accompany her to the hotel. She could leave the money in the hotel safe until our meeting. We shook hands, and she left. I remained seated for a moment, looking back at the minibar. A hint of jasmine wafted in the air.
2
I was walking down the Avenue de l’Yser and, as always, felt suffocated by the powerful smells of open sewers, earth, and spices, despite the cool shade of the centuries-old trees, which gave the river district a measure of charm. I had decided to pay a little visit to Hamidou Kansaye, the police commissioner. He happened to be my father’s best friend and was the one man who could shed light on Bahia Tebessi’s case. Over time, I had learned that in Bamako, things were rarely what they seemed and that going into situations blind could be risky. And so I had decided to ask the best officer in Mali to help me.
I was working my way through a colorful crowd. A woman with sagging breasts was frying banana beignets. Two giggling toddlers with big bellies were waddling around her, their steps not quite steady. In the streets, antique Mercedes taxis, Chinese mopeds, and city vans—soutramas—crowded with passengers were jostling for the right of way. It was a happy uproar of horn honking and curses in the Bambara tongue. Making little progress on foot, I hailed a cab. I gave the driver the address of the national police force and slid into the backseat, trying my best to avoid the broken springs. The police headquarters was in the ACI-2000 district, a monstrous growth of modern buildings and immense Stalin-style avenues on the west side of Bamako.
