Black Diamond

Paris that’s dealing with Chinese organized crime, and they’re sending somebody down to work on the fire. They added their own priority onto the request and say we should get something on the citizenship papers tomorrow.”
    “We’ll talk then,” said Bruno, and checked the time before he closed his phone. He’d just have time to take his dog for a run, shower and change and pick up Pamela before the meeting. And he’d better take that side of venison out of the baron’s freezer on the way. That was the unwritten rule. When a hunting friend died, you ate some of the last meat you’d hunted together and then drank to his passing.

11
    The dining room of the retirement home was the largest indoor space in St. Denis, and by far the most popular for political meetings, since even the most boring event would get at least a modest audience from the old folk. But this time it was more than crowded, with the tables stacked away, every chair occupied and another hundred people standing against the walls and in the doorways. Bruno was impressed. At least one in ten of the inhabitants of the commune of St. Denis was present, and he couldn’t remember any previous political meeting getting even half that number. At the far end of the room three more chairs were squeezed precariously onto a very small dais, and Alphonse was trying to stop the microphone from howling every time he brought it toward him.
    “Turn your phone off,” shouted someone from the front row. Alphonse obeyed, and the electronic howling stopped.
    “Friends, comrades, fellow citizens of Planet Earth,” he began. “This is a public meeting, but only those with Green and Socialist Party membership cards will be allowed to vote. And we have our party lists here, so we’ll know who you arebefore we hand out the ballots. It will all be democratic and transparent.
    “As you know, we’ve hammered out a joint program for the Greens and Socialists for next year’s municipal elections. There are copies of the program here in the hall for anybody who hasn’t read it already. If it’s approved tonight, we’ll present a common list of candidates next year, whose names will be on tonight’s ballot paper. So there’ll be one box to vote for the program, another box for the common list of candidates and a last one for our joint nominee for mayor. We all know and like Gérard Mangin, but he’s been mayor for too long, and it’s time for a change. So now let me present our joint candidate, born and bred in St. Denis, as good a Green as he is a Socialist, Guillaume Pons.”
    The contrast between the mumbling Alphonse and the dynamic and dashing figure of Pons in his open-necked white shirt was more than striking. It was like a shift in time between Alphonse’s era of dull but worthy causes and a new politics of image and excitement. Bruno could almost feel a thrill of expectation run through the hall as Alphonse handed over the microphone. Pons climbed up onto a chair and beamed at the crowd.
    “Can you all see me?” he asked. A roar came back. “Can you all hear me?” Another roar. “Welcome to everybody, Greens, Socialists, Communists and monarchists, you’re all welcome here tonight—just so long as you don’t try to build a sawmill where we’re trying to raise our children.”
    Another roar, but this time it was mainly laughter. Bruno found himself warming to the man, Pons’s charm somehow coming across in public in a way that Bruno hadn’t seen before in St. Denis. People instinctively took to him. Within thirty seconds, Pons had established himself as a born speakerand politician. Even the hard-line old lefties who thought it heresy to have a common program with the Greens were smiling.
    “Now I’m sorry to say that here comes the boring part, but it’s important for our kids and our town, so we’re going to have to put up with it as we go through the common program we’ve agreed upon.” He paused. “And if it’s going to be a dull ten minutes for you all, then think about those of us who spent ten hours drafting this.”
    More laughter, and then a respectful and interested silence as Pons went through the ten points. Bruno wouldn’t have disagreed with a word of it, nor would Mayor Mangin, or any other politician in France. It was a list of generalities on jobs, the environment, low taxes and the importance of children and the elderly. It was so bland that Bruno felt his customary skepticism start to creep back.
    “He’s a