Black Diamond

Bruno his job and been something of a father figure to him since Bruno’s arrival in St. Denis. Copyingpage after page of the two logbooks, Bruno pondered the political consequences. The election would be a straight fight between young Bill Pons and his Red-Green coalition and the mayor. There would be no Oedipal battle between father and son to bring the TV cameras to excite the politics of St. Denis out of their usual placid ways.
    His copies of the logbooks tucked safely into his briefcase, Bruno headed for the mayor’s office in Ste. Alvère. He greeted the secretary and politely refused her offer of coffee. He paused at the mayor’s door, knowing as he looked down at his notes and logbooks that he was probably holding the political future of St. Denis in his hands. He collected himself, looked once more at his notes and at Alain’s statement as he worked out how to explain the double fraud. He’d start with the tampered vacuum packs and the evidence from the digital counter, and then he’d explain about the auction ring and Pons’s manipulations. It was an odd way, Bruno reflected, to spend the time before he had to become Father Christmas. He knocked, opened the door and went in to greet the energetic and doubtless ambitious young politician, no older than himself, who ran the affairs of Ste. Alvère.
    After the usual handshakes and preliminaries, Bruno launched in. “Monsieur le Maire,” he began. “I’ve come up with some troubling information. You’re being doubly cheated. The truffles from your market are being tampered with after the vacuum packs are sealed. This is the source of the complaints you’ve received. Didier, your market manager, is responsible.”
    The mayor stood up, his fists clenched. He was wearing a black turtleneck sweater over black jeans and looked fit. Bruno recalled seeing him play rugby for his town only a few years before, and he’d been pretty good. The cigarettes didn’tseem to have slowed him down. “Didier?” the mayor asked. “You sure about this?”
    “Here is a copy of a sworn statement from one of the market staff explaining how the sealed packages were reopened.” Bruno handed Alain’s document across the wide desk. “Alain gave this statement to me voluntarily. I don’t think we should try charging him. We’re better off having him as a cooperative witness.”
    “Didier, what a damn fool,” said the mayor, scanning Alain’s statement. He took a Disque Bleu from the pack on his desk. Bruno thought of the DÉFENSE DE FUMER signs all over every
mairie
in France. But a mayor could make his own rules.
    Bruno went on to explain how the town was being cheated out of tens of thousands of euros each month. “The prices paid at the auctions held at the end of the day are much lower than they should be. And it’s getting worse. More and more of the truffles, particularly the high-grade ones, are being sold at these special auctions where the town makes very little profit. By my calculation, if these items were sold at the proper price, the town would be at least half a million euros better off.”
    “Putain,”
said the mayor, blowing out a stream of smoke. “This could cost me the election. Who else knows of this?”
    Bruno decided to ignore the question. When politicians asked who else knew about an embarrassment, it usually meant they were tempted to hush things up. “There is also strong evidence that this final auction is being used to launder cash. The records say that it comes from Boniface Pons, although I can prove that on some occasions he wasn’t present when the cash was supposedly paid. As you know, Pons started a truffle plantation that was managed by Didier.”
    The mayor nodded slowly. Bruno noticed that his healthy pallor had taken on a grayish tinge.
    “Since Pons always paid cash this was probably lost on your accountants and may not have come to your attention. I have to recommend that you bring in the Police Nationale at this point. At any rate, I have to report my findings.”
    “Half a million euros,” said the mayor, slumping down into his chair.

24
    To Bruno’s surprise, all three mayoral candidates awaited him around the Christmas tree in the dining room of the retirement home, the largest indoor hall in St. Denis. Mathilde, the magnificently bosomed former nurse who ran the home, was engaging all three in stilted conversation while elderly ladies scurried back and forth with plates of sandwiches and cakes from the