Malavita Read Online Free PDF Page A

lingering to wait for the ones who came out at six. Amongst those was a group of seven boys gathered around Warren.
    The biggest one needed better marks in maths so as not to repeat the year, but his parents couldn’t afford private lessons. The toughest, a winger in the rugby team, would do anything to be friends with Laetitia’s brother, who was standing next to Warren. The brother in question would do anything to own the autograph of Paolo Rossi, which was in the possession of Simon from 1B. Simon from 1B was quite willing to surrender it in exchange for help with a personal vendetta against the boy who had targeted Warren. Another one, regarded as the
lycée
oddball, a mostly gentle boy who sometimes suffered from violent explosions, would give anything he had to be included in a group, any group, to be part of a gang, to no longer be the eternal outsider – and Warren was offering him this possibility. And the last two had joined the group for reasons they preferred not to divulge in front of Warren, who couldn’t have cared less what they were.
    The rugby player knew where the three gangsters always hung out after school – a park, which they regarded as their private territory and to which they controlled access. Less than ten minutes later, the three were on the ground. One had vomited, the other was writhing in pain, and their leader was on his knees, sobbing like a baby. Warren told them to bring a hundred euros the next morning, by 8. The sum would double with each half-day’s delay. Terrified of angering him again, they thanked him, keeping their eyes to the ground. Warren could see already that these three would become his most faithful sidekicks if that was what he wanted. Once an enemy had paid homage, you had to allow this escape route.
    If Warren hadn’t been able to build up the foundation of his enterprise that evening, he would have sorted things out with those three on his own, with just a baseball bat. And he would have explained to anyone who had tried to stop him that life had offered him no other choice.
    *
    Maggie went into the shop in the avenue de la Gare, picked up a red basket, pushed through the gate and looked for the refrigerated section. She was tempted to buy some escalopes with cream and mushrooms to make a change from her usual cooking. Unlike Frederick, Maggie was one of those people who, when in Rome, did as the Romans did. Having immersed herself in the local press and architecture, she was now prepared to explore local cuisine, and risk the fury of her family at the dinner table. But she did, by reflex, go to the pasta shelves, and studied the no. 5 and no. 7 spaghetti, the green tagliatelle, the penne and a whole range of shells and vermicelli that she had never quite seen the point of. Feeling slightly guilty, she picked up a packet of spaghetti and a tin of peeled tomatoes, in case her menfolk complained. Before heading for the cash desk, she asked a shop girl where she might find peanut butter.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œPeanut butter. Perhaps I’m not pronouncing it right.”
    The young woman called the manager, a man in blue overalls.
    â€œPeanut butter,” she repeated. “
Peanut butter.
”
    â€œI understood.”
    Like every morning, this man had been up at six to receive the deliveries and unload them into the storeroom. He had then logged the staff arrivals, motivated his troops and greeted the first customers. In the afternoon he had met two wholesalers, and been to the bank. Between four and six, he had personally rearranged the chocolate and biscuit section and checked the resupply, which hadn’t been properly done. In other words, the day had gone smoothly. Until now, when this unknown woman had come in asking for a product he hadn’t got.
    â€œPut yourself in my place, madam. I can’t stock all the odd things people ask me for. Tequila, surimi, fresh sage, buffalo mozzarella, chutney, peanut butter, God