Page 108 - The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal
“You're lucky to know about those things. I'd have left the lace behind.”
It was then that Guy suggested that he and I work more closely together. “All you'll have to do is let me know about the jobs and I'll do them,” he said. I refused. In burglary, you can not carry out what someone else has conceived. The one who does a job must be clever enough to allow for the unforeseen m a given project. All Guy saw in a thief's life was the splendid and brilliant, the scarlet and golden. To me, it is sombre and subterranean. I see it as hazardous and perilous, just as he does, but with a peril different from breaking one's bones by falling from a roof or being smashed against a wall by a pursuing car or being killed by a 6/35 bullet. I'm not cut out for those lordly spectacles in which you disguise yourself as a cardinal in order to steal the relics of a basilica, in which you take an airplane to outwit a rival gang. I don't care for such luxurious games.
When he stole a car, Guy would manage to drive off just when the owner appeared. He got a kick out of seeing the face of the man watching his car docilely going off with the thief. It was a treat for him. He would burst into an enormous, metallic laugh, a bit forced and artificial, and would drive off like the wind. It was rare for me not to suffer at the sight of the victim and his stupefaction, at his rage and his shame.
When I got out of prison we met at a pimps' bar. At La Villa. The walls were covered with autographed photos, pictures of taxi−girls, but chiefly of boxers and dancers. He had no money. He himself had just escaped.
“Don't you know of something to do?” “I do.”
I told him in a low voice that I intended to rob a friend who owned some objets d'art that could be sold abroad. (I had just written a novel entitled Our Lady of the Flowers, and its publication had earned me some wealthy connections.)
“Do we have to beat the guy up?” “It's not necessary. Listen.”
I took a deep breath, I leaned over to him. I changed the position of my hands on the rail of the bar. I shifted my leg. In short, I was getting ready to jump.
“Listen. We could send the guy to jail for a week.”
I can't exactly say that Guy's features moved, yet his whole physiognomy was transformed. Perhaps his face hardened and grew motionless. I was suddenly frightened by the harshness of his blue stare. Guy bent his head over a little to the side, without stopping to look me in the face, or, more exactly, to stare at me, to hold me fast. I suddenly realized the meaning of the expression: “I'm going to pin you down!” His voice, when it answered, was low and even, but leveled at my stomach. It shot from his mouth with the rigidity of a column, of a ram. Its constrained monotone made it seem compressed, compact.
“What? Are you saying that, Jeannot? Are you telling me to send a guy to the jug?”
My face remained as motionless as his, just as hard, though more deliberately tense. To the gathering clouds in his stormy face I opposed mine of stone, to his thunder and lightning, my angles and points. Knowing that his rigor would burst and give way to contempt, I faced it, for a moment. I quickly thought of how I could save myself without his suspecting that I had planned a vile act. I had to have time on my side. I said nothing. I was letting his amazement and contempt pour over me.
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